Page 5051 - Week 13 - Thursday, 29 November 2018
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committed to providing the best care and services they can for people in our community. At the same time, I recognise that there remain a number of challenges that we are facing as a jurisdiction in relation to workforce management. A crucial part of this issue is that there is a nationwide shortage of consultant psychiatrists, which is projected to continue past 2030. This is not an ACT-specific problem, and it is one that I have asked the COAG Health Council to undertake some more detailed work on.
While this is not a problem we can solve on our own, the ACT government is committed to using the levers we have to attract high quality mental health professionals to the ACT. The mental health division have convened a workforce development committee to develop an action plan that will provide a sustainable workforce for the future. Key elements of this action plan include training, development, recruitment, upskilling and retention strategies for our mental health staff.
A group attraction and retention incentive has also recently been enacted to bring the ACT into line with the pay rates for mental health specialist medical officers in other jurisdictions. These incentives will make working in our territory a more attractive prospect for psychiatrists. Thanks to some of these strategies and active recruitment processes, there are currently 13 medical officers working full-time in the adult mental health unit. These include five consultant psychiatrists—three permanent and two locums—four psychiatric registrars and four junior medical officers. While there is more work to do in this space, there are clear signs of improvement. Recent recruitments have been a boost to morale and taken some pressure off our existing workforce.
The ACT government is committed to providing timely access to care, particularly in our acute mental health services. Canberra Health Services is currently actively implementing contemporary best practice models of care for our emergency department in relation to mental health presentations. For example, the mental health short stay unit and the mental health consultant liaison service have been implemented in the emergency department at the Canberra Hospital. Calvary hospital also embeds consultant liaison functions within its emergency department. These services help to ensure timely access for mental health treatment and help to reduce the impact on access for non-mental health emergency presentations.
The government is also working to shift our service response from one of emergency department presentation to a stepped model of care where the person receives the right care in the right place at the right time. Part of this shift includes the redesigned adult community mental health services model of care, which is being implemented across Canberra Health Services. This model of care is deliberately aimed at reducing hospital presentations and supporting early discharge processes. Over time it will reduce the pressure on our acute mental health services, while linking patients to a range of community services as an alternative to hospitalisation.
The first new service, the assertive community outreach service, officially commenced operations on 14 June this year with a graduated rollout of the remaining new teams to occur throughout 2018. The therapies team officially commenced in
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