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Parliament’s health select committee has been digesting the auditor-general’s report on how well public organisations are working together to meet the mental health needs of young New Zealanders.
The auditor-general’s work includes inquiring into how public organisations are operating, and it also watches how public money is spent. Its findings offer an independent view that can inform Parliament and the public.
In its report, 'Meeting the mental health needs of young New Zealanders', the auditor-general concluded that "a more youth-focussed, integrated, and coherent system of care is required to meet young people's mental health needs".
"Mental health is the biggest issue facing young New Zealanders today" - Leanne McAviney
Auditor-General’s interest
You may be wondering why the auditor-general probed this area. The assistant auditor-general of sector performance Leanne McAviney, who came to talk to the committee along with a couple of colleagues, gave a helpful answer.
“Mental health is the biggest issue facing young New Zealanders [aged 12 -24] today," she said.
"It affects people’s ability to participate in education, work or just to cope with the challenges that come with that transition into adulthood. And the costs of inaction to support youth mental health are high."
McAviney said early and effective intervention was linked to a range of positive outcomes.
Those included improved achievement in education, increased lifelong earnings and greater life expectancy.
“So our office has a deep interest in this matter and has a continuing interest in how well government agencies work together to address some of the country’s most complex challenges, and this is one of them. Our work examining the response to family violence and sexual violence is another example.”
Report's main findings
Four key findings from the report were shared with the health select committee by the senior performance auditor Dr Rachel Patrick.
“First, many young people in distress can’t access the support they need, when and where they need it. So we’ve seen government investment into new primary level mental health services and that is making a difference in making primary mental health care more available to young people. Yet at the same time, we’re seeing growth in waiting lists at the specialists end of the system, so for children and young people in particular," Patrick said.
“Number two, services need to be tailored to the specific needs of young people. Making mental health services more attractive and accessible to young people means designing services for and alongside young people, with young people’s input and involvement.
“Number three, addressing system level challenges. So there’s some big system level challenges facing the mental health and addiction system, and many of these are long standing. So just touching on a couple of those, we’ve recommended that agencies take urgent action to address the lack of up-to-date mental health prevalence data; and to develop a national mental health and addiction workforce plan to ensure young people’s needs are being met and to effectively target funding and services to the areas of greatest need.
“Number four, more effective cross-agency working. Agencies need to find new ways of working if they are to address some of the long-standing system challenges - in particular strong leadership and a coordinated approach by agencies is required.”
Follow-up
The performance audit manager, Jason Hewett, talked to the MPs about follow-up conversations the health select committee might look to have if it was to monitor how effectively agencies would work together to implement the various recommendations the auditor had made.
“We understand that you spent a large amount of hours with Te Whatu Ora recently, so our suggestion would be that maybe the following agencies would be a good start for a conversation.
“They would be the Ministry of Health in its mental health and addiction system leadership role, the Ministry of Education, the steward of the education system and also a place where many young people are; and lastly Oranga Tamariki and Corrections, these are two agencies which support a large number of young people with high mental health needs.”
The report, with its various recommendations, is available here on the Auditor-General’s website.