Page 606 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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I think one of the challenges that I face as minister is getting agreement from consumers, carers, service providers in the community sector and service providers in the public sector about a joint way forward. But having said that, I think when you look at the massive reform that has been undertaken, particularly in Mental Health ACT, over the past four years, everything is achievable and we certainly were on the pathway to having a final plan that, as far as it can, meets everybody’s needs.
I will just say that I think we are very lucky in the ACT in terms of our mental health system. In the public sector we are very lucky to have the leadership of Dr Peggy Brown and her team. Certainly Dr Brown is internationally recognised as a leader in the mental health arena. Working closely with Dr Brown, as I have over the past couple of years, I have certainly been very impressed by her ability to reform and continue to look for improvements in delivery of mental health services to the people of the ACT.
Last Friday afternoon I was lucky enough to attend the accreditation feedback session of the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards who for the first time did surveys of the entire ACT Health. Every business unit was seeking a full accreditation from that council. It will take, I imagine, three to four months to get the recommendation from the council and the full report.
One of the surveyors actually made the point of coming up to speak with me directly and said that he felt that Mental Health ACT was leading the country in terms of service provision and consumer-focused service delivery. That is pretty rare. Surveyors are pretty hard taskmasters. That is my experience. He actually made the point of wanting to let me know just how good he thought our service was, how he thought there were elements of the service that should be repeated across the country and how he felt that I, as minister, should feel very well supported by the mental health system in the ACT, particularly the public system which was the subject of the survey.
We will get that report in due time and I am more than happy to provide that to members when it becomes available. But certainly the work that Dr Brown and her team are putting in in responding to consumer concerns and in continuous improvement in practices appears to have been supported by the early indications of the survey work.
We have a draft mental health services plan, I guess, because it has been quite a complex piece of work to put together. I have had lengthy discussions with the community sector about their concerns, particularly on targets, implementation matters and detailing things in the plan that they feel that need to be detailed. In many areas I do not have very strong views on that, but the draft mental health services plan is to set specific strategic agenda for the next five years.
Usually in those documents you do have a whole range of other documents that hang off them that measure progress, that set out clearly implementation timeframes and targets. That is the discussion I have had. There are mixed views about that. Some believe that those targets and implementation details should be in the plan and not sit
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