Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Matt Doocey: Mental Health Minister on the decreasing wait times for mental health services

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Matt Doocey: Mental Health Minister on the decreasing wait times for mental health services · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Another target's update this morning. This one mental health fast
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: access to primary care achieved or beaten Specialist service metal beaten.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: In the South Island, the number of people getting access
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to primary support within a week jump from sixty six
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  Speaker 1: percent to ninety one percent. This is called a four
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: e D wait times for mental health patients. Long way
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  Speaker 1: to go. They're the same with staffing. Matt Docy, mental
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Health Minister. Good morning ording Ryan. Are there fewer mental
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: people or is the system faster?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I'd say just a big thank
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  Speaker 2: you to the frontline mental health staff. They do an
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  Speaker 2: amazing job and this is an ability to shine a
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  Speaker 2: light on them. Look, there's still a long way to
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  Speaker 2: go when you look at the veriability within the different
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  Speaker 2: twenty health districts in New Zealand. But comes back to
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  Speaker 2: what sort of country do we want to live in?
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  Speaker 2: And that's why I've set targets one week for primary
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  Speaker 2: mental health support and three week for specialists.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but are you improving on some of these figures
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: because there are fewer people requiring them? Or is the
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  Speaker 1: system faster?
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  Speaker 2: It's definitely faster. So if you look at a primary
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  Speaker 2: mental health over the last four quarters, so we're going
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  Speaker 2: to remember these are the first time we've ever set
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  Speaker 2: targets for mental health in New Zealand. We've now got
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  Speaker 2: twelve months worth of data. It does bounce around to
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  Speaker 2: weep it, but if you look at primary mental health,
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  Speaker 2: we're seeing a significant increase in numbers from around fifty
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  Speaker 2: two thousand people are quarter up to but over sixty thousand.
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  Speaker 1: So the numbers of people needing help are going up
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  Speaker 1: and you're able to get them through even faster than
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  Speaker 1: when they were fewer.
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  Speaker 2: Very much so, because when these targets increase, as in
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  Speaker 2: the percentage of people are getting one week support or
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: three week, the inverse is happening, which means the wasting
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: time is actually going down, which means more people can
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  Speaker 2: be seen. And when you think about mental health, it's
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  Speaker 2: a real red flag for people to be stuck on
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  Speaker 2: weightless and so actually timiness is important. So that's why
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  Speaker 2: three out of the five targets are around access.
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  Speaker 1: How did these improvements compare to pre COVID, You know,
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  Speaker 1: are we just getting back to where we were or
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  Speaker 1: are we even better than that?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? The difficulty is this is the first time we've
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  Speaker 2: set targets for mental health in New Zealand, so as
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  Speaker 2: the first mental health minister when I came in to
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  Speaker 2: set these targets. So now we've only got twelve months
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  Speaker 2: versus worth of data. But just to be clear, I'm
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  Speaker 2: not a target fundamentalist. For me, the magic of these
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  Speaker 2: targets is to have a line in the sand and
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  Speaker 2: work with my officials to say what worked well to
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  Speaker 2: get us there, what didn't work so well, what can
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  Speaker 2: we improve next time? And you get that continuous improvement approach.
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  Speaker 1: All of this. Does all of this mean that we'll
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  Speaker 1: have fewer suicides?
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  Speaker 2: Well, ultimately what we want to do is ensure people
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  Speaker 2: in distress get support as quick as possible and hopefully
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  Speaker 2: that will lead to fewer suicides.
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  Speaker 1: Because what's the rate of them. How many deaths are
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: ye by suicide in New Zealand?
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  Speaker 2: Well, sadly last year we lost six hundred and seventeen kiwis.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: We haven't got the latest provisional statistics that will come
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  Speaker 2: out I think by the end of October.
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  Speaker 1: What would you like that to be? You know, you've
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  Speaker 1: got to target all that.
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  Speaker 2: No, we don't have a target for our suicide numbers,
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  Speaker 2: because clearly one suicide is too many. I think when
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  Speaker 2: you look at the rate per population, you know we're
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  Speaker 2: working for that to be declining.
• 3:28
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• 3:31
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