Review of Mental Health Services and Programmes

This submission to the National Mental Health Commission’s Review of Mental Health Services and Programmes maintains that research should be integrated into the design, delivery and evaluation of mental health services, rather than treated as an impost on the system. Research Australia notes the poor evidence base for many mental health therapies and practices, inadequate and inconsistent data collections, and the limited strategic direction of National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funding for mental health. It points to the strategic approach taken to cancer through the National Cancer Plan and Cancer Australia as a possible model, and supports a National Mental Health Research Plan integrated into the next National Mental Health Plan. Its ten recommendations include a strategic national investment in data linkage and collection; national clinical trial infrastructure and a mental health clinical trials network, building on the NHMRC Translation Faculty and the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance; dedicated clinical research budgets in public mental health facilities; more funding for health services research and comparative effectiveness research; a targeted national call for research into the physical, emotional and psychological safety of in-patients; professional development to raise research literacy in the mental health workforce; protected research time for mental health practitioners and general practitioners; and greater funding for population and preventive health research.