Enhancing community mental health services

As a former GP, mental health has always been a deep concern of mine as it is for many families here on the Northern Beaches. I’m pleased to report that we are making good progress on improving community mental health services for young people thanks to sustained advocacy by your three independent MPs on the Northern Beaches – including your state MP Michael Regan, my fellow federal MP Zali Steggall in Warringah, and myself.

You may recall that three years ago the previous state government pledged $7.5m to provide a four-bed adolescent mental health unit, but this did not go ahead when the Local Area Health District and Northern Beaches Hospital claimed the beds were not required and were underfunded. The good news is we’ve been fighting for the allocated money to remain in our community and to be spent enhancing community mental health and drug and alcohol services.  

So far, we’ve had funding allocated to an adolescent safe space at Brookvale, and for drug and alcohol services across the Northern Sydney Health District. Money has also been provided to expand the PACER program which is the combined police, ambulance and health professional mental health crisis response team. But there remains $4.5m still to be spent. 

I’ve been working closely with the NSW government and the community on how best to spend this money to enhance services for adolescents here on the Beaches and I am pushing for a firm plan by the end of the year. 

In September I attended a round table at Northern Beaches Hospital with hospital executives and representatives of the Local Area Health District to fully understand how the hospital is currently dealing with adolescents both in the Emergency Department and during admissions for mental health. 

Without a separate adolescent mental health ward, young people must currently be admitted to the Short Stay Unit of the Northern Beaches Hospital. However, it is deemed unsafe for vulnerable young people to be admitted alongside adults. To address this the hospital undertook to explore the feasibility of physical separation options, but the proposed solution currently is to ensure that all young people in this Short Stay Ward have a dedicated nurse with them at all times. Adolescents and teens requiring longer duration of care will be admitted to the specialised Brolga ward in Hornsby.

We also discussed the need for better integration of care for adolescents experiencing mental health crises, including more funding for services to help prevent hospital admissions and to better support people when they leave hospital. This will likely be a focus for the $4.5m still to be spent. 

I have also been working closely with men’s mental health groups on the Northern Beaches and held a round table in July with many of the wonderful groups we have in our community. With 75% of those who take their own life being male, it is a critically important issue. Again, collaboration and better communication about the services on offer was a major theme as well as making sure GPs are aware of what’s on offer.  

We also discussed how to improve health-seeking behaviour among men, who are notoriously reluctant to seek out support. Talking about mental fitness, rather than mental illness is a good place to start. 

I’ll continue pushing for more comprehensive and better-connected mental health services on the Northern Beaches, including not only the best crisis care but also more support for the promotion of mental fitness and wellbeing.