National Mental Health Reform 2011-12
Economic and social participation for people with mental illness
- Foreword
- Highlights
The Challenges- Severe and debilitating mental illness
- Better targeted and more efficient primary mental health services
- Early intervention and prevention, and mental health services for children and young people
- Economic and social participation for people with mental illness
- Addressing service gaps in state and territory systems
- Quality, transparency and accountability in mental health
- A new approach – A ten year roadmap for mental health reform
Priorities and new Initiatives
The lost productivity and social exclusion caused by mental illness is significant and presents a powerful imperative to do better. Australia’s employment of people with mental illness compares poorly to other developed countries. Around 83 per cent of people without disability participate in the labour force but the participation rate for those with mental and behavioural disorders is just 42 per cent.
At the same time, the proportion of Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipients with a primary psychological or psychiatric condition has grown by 76.1 per cent in the past 10 years – more than twice the rate of overall DSP growth. Expenditure through the DSP for people with mental illness in 2009-10 was estimated at more than $3 billion. Lost productivity for this group is an estimated $9.7 billion annually.
Added to this is the productivity loss from those who are in the workforce but for whom there is absenteeism or reduced functioning as a result of a mental health condition – estimated at $5.9 billion annually.