Mental health data needed to drive reform

Australia's progress in mental health reform could be much more effectively monitored through just 12 indicators, instead of the hundreds currently used, experts say.

"Australia spends around $7.6 billion on mental health services annually, but is anybody getting better?" asked the authors, led by Sebastian Rosenberg from the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre.

"Despite 20 years of rhetoric, Australia's approach to accountability in mental health is overly focused on fulfilling governmental reporting requirements rather than using data to drive reform."

They said the existing system is both "fragmented and outcome blind".

"Australia has failed to develop useful local and regional approaches to benchmarking in mental health."

In a Medical Journal of Australia article, the authors said the hundreds of mental health indicators and reports currently used should be scrapped and data collection refocused on a "modest but achievable" set of 12 indicators.

Their suggested indicators cover health, social and system reform.

DATA NEEDED TO DRIVE MENTAL HEALTH REFORM

* attempted and completed suicide rates

* death rates after discharge from a mental health facility

* proportion receiving mental health care services

* prevalence of mental illness

* employment rates for working-age people with a mental illness

* education and training rates for those aged 16-30

* stable housing rates for the mentally ill

* community attitudes towards mental illness

* experience of mental health care

* hospital readmission rates

* life expectancy

* numbers accessing specialised programs.