Access to specialist mental health and addiction services continues to decrease

Data released today by Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission shows that fewer people accessed specialist mental health and addiction services in the year from July 2023 to June 2024 than in previous years.

Recently available data shows a decrease of over 3,000 fewer people than the year before and more than 16,000 fewer people than four years ago.

"We are very concerned about the continued downward trend in the number of people being seen by specialist mental health and addiction services over the last few years," said Karen Orsborn, Chief Executive of Te Hiringa Mahara.

"Rangatahi and young people aged under 25 make up over 10,000 of the 16,000 fewer people being seen. This requires urgent attention."

"We want to see improved access so people get timely support when they need it."

The reasons behind a reduction in access to services were reported in our 2024 Kua Tīmata Te Haerenga service monitoring report. We found that this was not due to a decrease in need for specialist services, but largely due to significant workforce shortages and increasing complexity of people’s needs.

In June 2024, the Commission made a set of recommendations for urgent action by Government and health agencies to accelerate improvement in a range of critical areas. This included a call for Health NZ to develop a mental health and addiction workforce plan to address service capacity and workforce shortages by June 2025.

"We will be keeping a close watch on access and will publish further information in the coming months. We will also be monitoring progress with the recommendations we made in 2024," Karen Orsborn said.

"Ultimately, we want to see improved access to specialist services and this needs to be a top priority."

The factsheet released today is part of broader monitoring work that Te Hiringa Mahara uses to assess how well the system is working. Our role is to draw attention to areas where improvements are needed as well as highlighting where things are working well. Additional monitoring information on the 2023/24 year will be released in coming months.