Victoria Leads the Way in Publicly Funded Psychiatry Services

Melbourne, Australia, — 12 April, 2006— A mapping exercise and study published in the most recent issue of Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry reported that publicly funded aged mental health services proved the most effective means of reaching the frail, multiply disabled old people who were often overlooked by services for younger adults. The study also drew attention to the fact that this vital service is inequitably distributed within Australia.


Published by Blackwell Publishing, for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and co-authored by Daniel O’Connor – Professor of Old Age Psychiatry from the Department of Psychological Medicine at Monash University – this paper provides essential information, such as the size and distribution of psychogeriatric services; to planning authorities in the mental health service departments within Australia and New Zealand.


The paper uncovers that Victoria leads the nation by being the pioneer state to recognize and articulate the need for dedicated services in aged care- having pioneered a policy dictating funding, composition and distribution of child, adult and aged public mental health services. Having initiated the conversion of long-stay psychogeriatric wards to purpose-built, federal subsidized specialist nursing homes; the Victorian capital city is also the only Australian state to provide specialist, multidisciplinary aged psychiatry teams with community, acute inpatient and residential arms in all its major towns. All our other states had services based mostly in the capital cities with limited coverage to regional and rural areas.


The researchers tracked national services exhaustively through numerous methods- including the completion of questionnaires by senior staff at respective centres.


The results showed that services varied widely with respect to their numbers, size and community outreach, with Victoria being the only Australian state to provide specialist, multidisciplinary aged psychiatry teams with community, acute inpatient and residential arms in all its major cities. New South Wales, as the state with the largest aged population, performed poorly in comparison, while New Zealand ranked relatively well despite its small size and widely dispersed population.



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This study is published in the April issue of the Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (Vol. 14, No. 1).