Fifth National Mental Health Plan: Response to the Consultation

This response to the consultation on the draft Fifth National Mental Health Plan maintains that the draft’s lack of any reference to health and medical research is striking, given that the Fourth Plan proposed a National Mental Health Research Plan that was never developed and that the Roadmap for National Mental Health Reform 2012–22 and the National Strategic Framework for Chronic Conditions both identify research as essential. Noting that people with severe mental illness die up to 20 years earlier than the general population and that direct treatment costs in Australia are around $8 billion a year, Research Australia recommends the Plan to set out the role of research and how researchers will engage with the mental health system, and to recognise the short-term costs to services of integrating research. It works through the Plan’s seven priority areas, proposing health services research for regional planning, investigator-led clinical trials and comparative effectiveness research for people with severe and complex illness, dedicated clinical research support in public mental health facilities, and use of Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) priorities on clinical trials and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health inequality. Case studies include the Black Dog Institute’s Lifespan suicide prevention program, the SpringboarD trial for people with type 2 diabetes, a national survey on discrimination and a Monash study of aggression in psychiatric inpatients. It also recommends a strategic national investment in data linkage and collection, which the draft’s monitoring actions do not address.