The Mental Health Foundation (the MHF) welcomes news that Hon. Matt Doocey will retain his Minister for Mental Health and Associate Minister of Health titles and portfolios, after Cabinet’s shuffle over the weekend.
Hon. Doocey’s retention is particularly timely as he works on a strategy to improve the mental health system, now legally mandated for November 2025 delivery.
“We all know the mental health system in Aotearoa is under immense strain and pressure,” the MHF’s chief executive, Shaun Robinson, says.
“Allowing the Minister to solely focus on mental health will provide him with the bandwidth to deliver this complex mental health strategy – a strategy it’ll be no mean feat to achieve.”
Mental health need in Aotearoa New Zealand is high, and rising. Almost half of all New Zealanders will experience mental distress or addiction challenges at some point in their lives. Over 50% of young people now experience anxiety or depression – a number especially significant since half of all lifelong mental health challenges begin by age 14.
Despite this need, New Zealanders often can’t access timely and appropriate mental health care. Many mental health workers are under-resourced and over-worked, with many desperately trying to provide quality care in a system that often doesn’t support them to.
For at least the last five years, the MHF has repeatedly called for a clear, detailed implementation plan to tackle Aotearoa New Zealand’s mental health system woes. Various mental health and addiction inquiries, reports and frameworks have been released, but often with only high-level promises or piecemeal actions to deliver them.
“It’s been a real win to see the passing of the Pae Ora Amendment Bill, which resulted in a legally mandated mental health strategy – finally!” Mr Robinson says.
“Now, the focus is on what that strategy will include. We expect it to accurately identify the areas of need and show exactly where we’re headed, how long it will take, who will be involved, and what to expect along the way. We expect specific funding be allocated to this mental health strategy in Budget 2025 so it can hit the ground running.”
“Funding this strategy commensurate to mental health need is key to delivering the mental health system New Zealanders need and deserve.”
The MHF has identified some core areas of mental health need requiring Budget 2025 funding, including:
- Resourcing and developing severely under-resourced areas of the mental health workforce, as identified in Health NZ's Mental Health and Addiction Workforce Plan 2024 – 2027.
- Increasing access to specialist mental health services.
- Improving responses to people experiencing mental health crises, including funding community providers to implement wraparound, alternative methods of crisis care as the Police withdraw from mental health callouts, and developing a clear health plan to support the Police’s withdrawal.
- Ensuring the mental health system is responsive to the needs of Māori and young people, rather than exacerbating the already disproportionately poor outcomes these groups face.
- Investing in collecting and integrating quality and timely mental health data, to clearly understand areas of need and compare mental health system gaps and strengths, and build on the commitment of a youth mental health prevalence survey by expanding this to other populations.
“These aren’t all of the areas of mental health need, but they give a good snapshot of the significant work this mental health strategy will need to address,” Mr Robinson says.
“Our door is always open for any advice the Minister for Mental Health may be looking for.”