Kyotra. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. It's no secret New Zealand is suffering a major mental health crisis. Some people, including teens and children, often wait weeks to see someone when they seek help. It's so dire. A survey of those at the cold face of the crisis describes a system that's under pressure, under resourced and under delivering for New Zealanders. So is there any hope on
the horizon? With the Coalition government's edition of a specialized mental health portfolio Today on the front Page, mental Health Minister Matt Doocey is with us to discuss what moves are being made to make sure there's help there when we need it. Minister, we all know New Zealand has something of a mental health crisis at the moment. Hey, how bad is it?
Yeah?
Fair to say there's a lot of pressure at the moment on our mental health system. We're seeing rising levels of unmet need, more people reporting distress and when we look at the sector itself, there's a growing number of workforce vacancies. So I think largely as a country, we've done very well creating a culture where people are facing
less stigma and discrimination. But I think what's happening now as more people are choosing to be more open and be more trusting and ask for help, sadly that support is not there well.
The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commissions found fifteen to twenty four year olds report the highest level of psychological distress of any age. Is that a real concern?
Yeah, very much so, because when you look at mental health, I mean what we should be doing is treating mental illness, but also a parallel work stream of promoting better mental health and wellbeing. And when we look at the life course, it's just vital that we work with young people to support them to be mentally well through education and skills training so they can assist themselves with the ability to
manage their mental health and deal with everyday stresses. But also for those who go on to develop lifelong and enduring mental illness, the adolescent years are vitally important to intervene earlier and engage those young people to ensure they can get some timely support.
And we know there's a growing number of teens and children waiting weeks, if not months for the help that they need. Is this good enough?
No? No, quite, frankly is not good enough. Look at the last government who made quite a big play on mental health. They talked about the one point nine billion that still today the sector hasn't seen. They've promised to transform the sector. Yet the Order to General report that was released a couple of months ago showed that waiting times for young persons specialist services have actually gone backwards. And for me, a large part of that is the
workforce vacancies. And even in that report, the Orders of General stated that there just doesn't appear to be a plan to grow the mental health and addiction workforce. So we're focused on producing New Zealand's first independent and standalone mental health and workforce plan that will be focused on driving down vacancy rates in health New Zealand.
When should we expect to see that plan.
I'm hoping to get that out in the next month.
I remember Herald has reported on just one case. It's Ryan Aiah Boyd, a thirteen year old girl who is believed to have died after struggling with bully. Her aunt's I remember wrote an open letter calling for change. What would you say to those families in those situations who feel that government really isn't doing enough.
You know, my thoughts and prayers are with that individual and family and friends. And as the Mental Health Minister, I do meet quite regularly with people who have been bereave by suicide, attempted suicide themselves, or been in the mental health system over a number of years. And I think what we need to ensure is we give people timely access to support. And when we're talking about young people,
we know we have growing levels of unmet need. We know the waiting lists are getting longer, and that's why for this government, we want to pair up with the NGL and community sector because they're a sector that has the capacity to grow. We want to get more money out of the beehive to the grassroots. So if you look at one of the announcements we've made already is
the twenty four million dollars to gum Boot Friday. That's an organization that has several hundred young people specific counselors who can provide a level of support within twenty four hours, and that investment will support an extra fifteen thousand young people accessing that support. And I'm really keen for that investment into gum Boot Friday to support young people, specifically on waiting lists, because a young person on a weight
list is quite a red flag to potential risk. And also if we can get in earlier, it stops their mental health deteriorating further. So we're going to make sure we focus on those wait lists.
For this new money, we can provide even more services and more diverse counselors than ever before. We will be reporting every single cent every session. If they want to report weekly, I will give you a report weekly, so we ll be totally transparent.
What do you make of the backlash from people questioning why this one organization got such a large chunk of cash while other grassroots agencies say have to go through the proper funding channels.
Well, it was a coalition agreement between the three parties of New Zealand First and Act and National to fund gum Boot Friday to.
The tune of twenty four million.
Though, yeah, it's six million dollars a year over four years, isn't it. It shows the level of need to be frank and it shows the immediacy that we need to respond. Gumboot Friday has a number of young people specific mental health counselors that can be deployed and to see people within a matter of a day or two, and that's what we want to fund. We make no bones about it. We want to get the money out of the beehive to the grass roots and scale up organizations that have
facity to deliver, and that's what gun Boot Friday can offer. Also, recently we announce the ten million dollar Innovation Fund that will pair up with other NGOs to co fund them to scale up as well. So it shows the direction of travel for this government. We're serious about it and we're ready to back organizations who can scale up and deliver.
What results has gun Boot Friday had that make it worthy of such a huge injection of cash and do they have the capacity to basically be the government's endorsed charitable service at this point.
Well, what we're looking for within organizations is the ability for them to scale up. When you look at gun Boot Friday specifically, they have a large number of workforce that they can deploy, and when you look at the publicly funded mental health system, it is constrained, and part of that constraint is the existing workforce in the mental health system. So we want to back enngo and community groups who can support the publicly funded mental health system
take some of the demand away from it. And when you look at specifically Gumboot Friday, they can evidence a social return on investment. And that is similar to our Innovation Fund, where we're looking for NGOs and community organizations to evidence a social return on investment that shows their delivering and their effective.
You've already mentioned Labour's one point nine billion dollar investment in mental health? Did that make any difference at all? And now we have mental health targets, right, will that ensure that we actually start to see that bang we're getting for our buck in the mental health space.
Well, what Labor did prove in the last two terms was actually money isn't the sole answer and solution to dealing with the issues in mental health. And to answer your question when you said did it make a difference, well, even the Independent Mental Health and Wellbeing Commissioned said they couldn't find any evidence of that investment making a difference
and they actually called for a plan. So beggars belief that a lot of money was promised, We're not sure where it went and there was actually no plan and what we want to do is ensure that when we make investment into mental health, but into other areas as well, that a government spends money on to ensure that we a hold ourselves accountable. Is a government to where that tax byer money has been invested into, but ensure we
get results. So look a part of my new role of New Zealand's first Mental Health Minister and look to be very candid. Just giving someone a job doesn't make a difference. Nothing's changed because there's a new person in a job. But clearly what I choose to do with this role to how it helps support better mental health is what I will be held to account over the next few years. But part of my role is to be responsible for the mental health and addiction ring fence
funding in New Zealand. That's a two point six billion dollars spend every year and I want to ensure that
that's delivering. So last week with the Prime Minister Christopher Luxen, we announced five targets that are focused on access eighty percent of people to be seen in specialist services within three weeks, eighty percent to be seen by primary mental health services in one week, as well as committing to train an extra five hundred mental health professionals a year out of baseline funding and to focus on prevention and early intervention through committing to spending twenty five percent of
that ring fence funding on prevention early intervention.
We all know people are waiting weeks, if not months, to see a counselor they're often no bed or no facilities or nowhere for parents to turn to. We want targets because it actually focuses our ministers and our government. It also focuses very much our public service.
In terms of those targets, will we get a good look what will there be monthly stats? Quarterly?
Yeah, I think we'll start off with quarterly. I'm happy to move to monthly if it shows that that will further support performance and accountability for me. Looking at those targets, there'll be a need in some areas because they're new to set up the data capture, reporting and quality. But ultimately what we want to see is a clear line
of sight around accountability and performance as well. So when you look at the target of eighty percent of people been seen within three weeks for specialist services from the data we capture at the moment, which is definitely not complete.
We might be sitting around seventy five five percent, but actually when you look at young people, we're probably sitting closer to around sixty six percent, And not that we're measuring it at the moment, but I'm sure if you were to look at MARDI or maybe people living in rural communities, that would be well below the benchmark of
eighty percent as well. So it gives us ability to get visibility over a range of groups and priority groups and groups of people who are on the wrong side of mental health and suicide statistics to ensure that they can access the support they need.
And you mentioned staff for we know that staff vacancy rates have doubled since twenty eighteen. What can actually be done to get more workers in the mental health sector?
Yeah, well, I think this is primarily one of the key areas where the last government fell over on. I think as a minister it might be the easier part of announcing money, but the difficult part is turning that investment into new services on the ground. And you can announce money, but if you don't have the workforce to deploy,
those services will never open. In fact, last year there was an impatient facility that closed down here in Canterbury through lack of staffing, and even an adolescent mental health service I visited in Wellington a few months ago had a fifty percent workforce vacancy rate, so there's no surprise people were stuck on waiting lists and unable to access the support. So for me, it's twofold. We need to look at our current training pipelines for mental health professionals.
So if you look at something like clinical psychology, the advice I've got is we need around two hundred to two hundred and fifty more clinical psychologists a year, but currently our pipeline only trains fifty. But when you actually dig into the data, what it also shows is about four hundred people who graduate with undergraduate psychology degrees every year in New Zealand, but when they miss out on one of those fifty internship plays, they disappear from the sector.
So we want to do some new stuff as well. I'm looking at a new registration of an associate psychology role where we can look at giving those people a new registration and a new route into the field, and I think that's quite exciting.
Would that be kind of like becoming a teacherade or something in the classroom.
Yeah, it's based on the UK model. It's been very successful over there. I had the fortunate experience of working for the NHS in London for over ten years and fear to say quite a lot of comparable countries are
grappling with the same issues. So it would be for someone to be coming in at an associate level to have an agreed scope to acknowledge that where they are at that point of time and their profession, and it gives them an ability to train in their role as well to maybe go on to be a clinical psychologist. And I think what we want to do is make sure that we open up the exhibit sting pipelines of training we have in New Zealand, but actually think quite
differently about new registrations. Another area I'm queen keen to expand is the peer support and lived experience workforce, hugely underutilized in New Zealand. I've recently announced a one million dollar fund to allow more people to get the level for certification to achieve those roles, but also a new service of peer support and lived experience workers in ED departments across New Zealand to provide timely support as well.
So I think we've got to pull all the levers and that comes back to this mental health and addiction workforce plan that we have not had, and we will produce that in the coming months.
Well, I mean, speaking of data, one in five New Zealanders experience mental illness in their lifetime in prison. These figures are significantly higher, more than nine out of TAN, So that's ninety one percent of people in prison have had a lifetime diagnosis of a mental health or substance abuse disorder. That's shocking, isn't it.
Yeah, significantly high rates, which I would probably say are significantly under reported as well. There isn't consistent screening and assessment tools used for our prisoners. Recently, the government's move to change the settings to allow RAMAND prisoners because they a growing population within our prisons and our correction facilities at the moment, to access rehabilitation programs, including mental health and addiction services. Before they were unable to do that
because they were on romand as well. But I fundamentally believe it's right for if someone meets a threshold of
incarceration to keep the community. But it's actually also incumbent of the government of the day to ensure that why the person is in prison, we ensure that we can support them to the best of our abilities with rehabilitation programs, including mental health and addiction services, to ensure that when they are released, they do reintegrate back into society and they're not looking to re offend and come back into prison.
So a key part of this new role is New Zealand's first Mental Health Minister is not only to manage the two point six billion ring fence funding for mental health and addictions, but to work together with my colleagues around the cabinet table to develop in all of government strategies. So what are we doing in education, what are we doing in prisons, in housing and social services and the like, to ensure that we're connecting up all the mental health support across the government departments.
Yeah, so more does need to be done, hey, in prisons. When it comes to mental health support, I think.
There's a lot we can do. There's a growing area of work now around neurodiversity as well, not specifically a mental health condition, but I think with the ability now to screen, assess and help people get better support, I think it's the way forward because the government's committed on reducing offending and also recidivism in crime, especially youth crime, and I think mental health support and addiction support will keep part of that.
Is your government committed to making it easier for people to get diagnosed and treated for those neurodiversity conditions.
Yeah, We're possible. And I think it links back into the conversation we've had around workforce and potentially looking at the scope of practices for some of our workforce professions. A good example is the work and in fairness it's my colleague across Ile, Chloe Strawbrick from the Greens who's leading a lot of this work and look, I want to take a bipartisan approach to mental health.
For kiwi's living with ADHD, including some of the most recognizable. A diagnosis can be life changing, but hope is on the horizon. Swarwick chairs Parliament's Cross party Mental Health Group and says there is now a consensus on two critical changes.
The ability for GPS to prescribe, which can happen in a matter of months if pharmac prioritizes that and ministers see to that. And the second is a review of the special authority process which is currently a massive roadblock that requires those with ADHD to go back to their psychiatrists every two years to showcase that their brain has in fact not dramatically altered misself.
Chloe from the Greens and the whistle Wall from Labor at the time set up New Zealand Parliament's first cross party Mental Health Group, and I really want to make some enduring changes that will go past the three year parliamentary cycle. And some of the work we're doing that Chloe has been leading as well around ADHD is understanding whether it needs to be a psychiatrist that signs off
the spe authority prescribing or some of the assessments. And when we look at that and maybe start to think, is there other medical professions that can pick some of that work up to free up more capacity within psychiatry, because part of their short at the moment with the competing priorities is that someone who's perceived has been stable but needing neurodiverse assessment might be not as prioritized as
someone in a mental health condition and crisis. Hence the person looking for an ADHD assessment might have to wait two years. And so I think that piece of work is quite exciting where we look about who's currently delivering that scope and where else that might sit. And I think that will free up capacity in our workforce as well.
And should there be a separate mental health option when people call one one one? We know mental health call outs are taking a huge chunk of police time and resource. Hey, what's the solution here?
Yeah? Well it's interesting because I've asked me a few years ago, I would have had a slightly different answer. And why I mean that is the last National government in twenty seventeen announced a Mental Health Coresponse Team which paired up police and mental health professionals, but sadly the incoming Labor government in twenty eighteen canceled that. So we've lost six years of work where we potentially could be
developing better models of response to mental health crisis. I think mental health crisis is something that we need to
do a lot better in New Zealand. But the work is becoming very interesting because what the data is showing as we look in to the Triple one calls that police are responding to, is there a number of calls of people who are calling up around issues like loneliness, grief, potentially financial issues, relationship issues, and they're very important issues for the person, but not necessarily a call through one one one that would trigger a police response or a
mental health crisis call out response. So look, I think it's about time we looked at the dispatch center. I've been quite open. I do think it's time we have a fourth option where you ring up and say police, ambulance, fire, or mental health. But then we need to look at who would potentially respond to that call if it's a
threat to the individual or someone else. Could be a police response, it could be paired up with mental health in the co response teams, or it could be mental health teams on their own, or another agency approach if it's appropriate. And then from there, I think we also need to think about where is the best place to take that person. And I know there's some new work evolving around the country about what's called crisis cafes where people are taken to a crisis cafe manned by support
and lived experience workers. And there some work around the country where parts of emergency departments are fitted out so they're more appropriate for someone coming in crisis, so they're not brightly lit. A lot of people with noisy as well. So that piece of work is going to be three to five years. I've got to report back with Mark Mitchell, the Police Minister, in November to Cabinet to give an update and a plan over the next few years how
we'll take that forward. Because I want to finish saying how lucky we are to have the New Zealand Police who respond to mental health crisis callouts, because as we've seen in the UK, the Metropolitan Police have started to stop responding to mental health crisis callouts and we don't want to be in that position, so we need to ensure we've got the workforce to respond.
And lastly, minutes, so you've got quite a bit of work ahead of you. There's two and a half years until the next election and there's a lot to be done. Like you mentioned, that is the possible ability of another government coming in and scrapping things, right. Are you prepared to work across Parliament on bipartisan deals that will make sure that some of these plans will actually survive subsequent governments?
Very much so. I'm a consensus politician. I look to work and in ways that are enduring change. If that requires me to compromise or concede at times. I'm prepared to do that because what I want to ensure is we do have long term change to address the mental
health issues in this country. One of the successes I think in my role as a Mental Health Minister is that when there is a change of government, however long that takes, the incoming government looks at what change we made with this new role and decides to continue with it. And I am committed to taking a bipartisan approach. I've already met with the Cross part Mental Health Group to add my support to what they are doing. As the new minister, I'm actually the first minister to meet with
that group. Is no labor minister meet with them in the last two terms, and I'm committed to working with them and whoever else wants to work collaboratively in mental health within Parliament because that's where I think the change will happen.
Thanks for joining us, Minister. That said, for this episode of the Front Page, you can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzat Herald dot co dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells with sound engineer Patti Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.