The shortage of psychiatrists in New South Wales is starkly obvious with just one practitioner per 100,000 population in outer regional areas.
A raft of updated data shows that spending on mental health-related services in Australia increased by 12% in the five years from 2018 to 2023.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare dropped multiple updates on mental health today, including expenditure data which showed a $13.2 billion spend on mental health services in the most recent available year, 2022-23, up from the $11.8 billion spent in 2018-2019.
Spending on state and territory specialised mental health services increased from $7.1 billion in 2018–19 to $8.1 billion in 2022–23 in real terms.
The largest components of spending in 2022–23 were public hospitals ($3.3 billion) and community mental health care services ($3.2 billion). This pattern has been consistent over the past decade.
The $3.3 billion of spending on public sector hospital services during 2022–23 equates to an average cost per patient day of $1532.
In 2022–23, the total funding for specialised mental health services provided by private hospitals was $823 million. The non-Commonwealth sourced component of this was about $622 million. Total spending on specialised mental health services in private hospitals has not been available since 2017–18 due to changes in data collection availability.
Commonwealth spending on mental health-related services was estimated to be about $4.6 billion in 2022–23. However, there are other known Australian government areas of spending attributable to supporting mental health issues not included in this estimate.
Spending on Medicare-subsidised mental health-specific services and mental health-related medications provided through the PBS accounted for 48% of the total federal government spending in 2022–23. This was followed by:
- National programs and initiatives managed by the Department of Health and Aged Care (28%);
- the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (7%);
- Private health insurance premium rebates (4%).
The remaining 13% was comprised of the National Suicide Prevention Program, research, national programs and initiatives managed by the Department of Social Services, mental health specific payments to states and territories, Department of Defence funded programs, Indigenous social and emotional wellbeing programs and payments to the National Mental Health Commission.
In 2023–24, federal government spending on mental health-related subsidised prescriptions under the PBS and RPBS was $691 million, or $26 per capita.
Prescriptions for antipsychotics (34%) and antidepressants (34%) accounted for the majority of spending in 2023–24.
Workforce
Nurses made up 50% of the full-time equivalent staff in those facilities (19,393), a 50% increase of FTE nurses since 1994–95 (9580). NSW employs 11,199 FTE staff, followed by Victoria (10,437), Queensland (7863), and WA (4924).
In total there were about 25,000 mental health nurses, 33,000 psychologists, 2800 mental health occupational therapists and 2900 accredited mental health social workers working in Australia in 2022, and 4300 psychiatrists working in 2023.
The number of peer workers increased by an average of 18% per year while the number of carer workers increased by an average of 23% per year from 2017–18 to 2021–22.
Victoria had the most psychiatrists per 100,000 people, with 18 in 2023, followed by South Australia and Tasmania (17), Queensland and the ACT (16), NSW (15), WA (14) and the Northern Territory (11).
If you live in a remote area, Queensland is the place to be with 20 psychiatrists per 100,000 population in major cities, 8 per 100,000 in inner regional areas, and 11 per 100,000 in outer regional areas.
Related
NSW was the worst in this category with 17 in major cities, 8 in inner regional and just one psychiatrist per 100,000 in outer regional areas.
Brisbane North PHN and Central and Eastern Sydney were the best primary health networks in the country for psychiatrist coverage with 27 per 100,000 population, while Country SA PHN had just one psychiatrist per 100,000 and Murrumbidgee PHN had three.
Facilities
According to the AIHW, 6960 specialised mental health public hospital beds were available across 160 public hospitals in 2022–23, 5404 of them in specialised mental health public hospitals, an increase of 40% since 1992-93 when there were just 2189 beds.
There were 1911 specialised mental health facilities across the country, an increase of 66% since 2005-06 (1254).
NSW has the most, with 823 facilities. Victoria hosts 506, Queensland 246 and WA 147.
During 2022–23, there were almost 13,300 specialised mental health beds available nationally. Of these, 10,730 were in hospitals, 6960 in the public sector and 3800 in the private sector.
About 2550 beds were in residential mental health care services; 1720 were in government-operated services, which equates to 10 residential beds per 100,000 population nationally. These numbers have remained consistent over the past five years.
The full set of data updates is available here.