Karen Orsborn: Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission CEO on the need for improvement to addiction and mental health services

Experts say specialist addiction and mental health services need rapid improvement.  

New research from the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission has found three New Zealanders die every week due to accidental and preventable drug overdose, with fatalities up 88% from 2016 to 2023. 

At the same time, despite growing demands, fewer people are seeking specialist help. 

Commission CEO Karen Orsborn told Mike Hosking the biggest concern is the falling access to mental health and addiction services. 

She says they’re seeing high vacancy rates, particularly for specialist staff and psychiatrists, and that has a big impact on the system. 

Orsborn says that’s where they want to see some faster action. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Another weighty tome awaited me has arrived at three this morning.
Pages and pages entitled monitoring Mental health and Addiction system
performance in New Zealand. Excuse me. Fatal drug overdoses are
up eighty eight percent between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty three.
Sixteen thousand fewer people access special the services. Suicide rate
is not going down.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Karen Osborne is the Mental Health and Well Being Commissioned
CEO and is with us. Karen morning, Good morning, mind.
There's two things sixteen thousand fewer people accessing special services
that lack of demand or lack of service.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Look, that's not a lack of demand. What we're seeing
is that demand is increasing. And what we're seeing in
terms of access to specialist mentals and addiction services that
there are constraints primarily around workforce, but we know that
the people accessing those services also have higher levels of need.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay, when we say suicide rates not going down, is
that good? Is it plateauing?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh? Look, we'd certainly like to see the suicide rates
are reduced. There's a range of multiple factors that contribute
into that suicide rate, primarily factors that sit within the
sort of community and the broader sort of well being aspects.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, but if it's not going down, it's plateauing. And
that's good, isn't it. Don't We want to be as
optimistic as we can.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Of look for sure, but we'd like to see that
coming down. And what we've done with this report is
bringing you to some of those measures of outcomes from
the mental health and addiction system, recognizing the system has
a contribution, but also the wider factors in society, such
as a pandemic, also impact on those mental health well
I was going on.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
That was the funny enough next question, so overdoses between
twenty sixteen and twenty twenty three as tragic as what's
the matter? I mean, it's been and gone. What's the
point I mean, apart from collating the data, what's the
point of what does it tell us?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Oh? Look, this tells us what the outcomes are for
New Zealanders in terms of mental health and well being outcomes.
What we want to do is to look at those outcomes,
track those over time, but also say how does the
system need to improve to actually see positive shifts in
those measures?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
What happened to the one point nine billion dollars in
the well being budget the Grant Robertson so famously and
loudly gave this sector.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Oh look, we did a deep, quite detailed report on
the one point nine billion last year and the majority
of that money was spent for the purposes that it
was allocated to. There was about one point one that
went to health and that was over four years, and
the majority of that went into our Access and Choice program,
which we also reported on earlier this year. You and

(02:29):
I spoke about that back in April.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
But did it do anything substantive or is it just
that was one point nine billion that went to the
right area but achieved little if your numbers are accurate.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yep, Look, it went to the right areas and it
has had some impacts. We know the Access and Choice
program has had some positive impacts to increase that access
to that early intervention, primary and community services. It's not
at the levels it needs to be, so they needs
to be that push to get it to where it
needs to be. But what we're really seeing are concerned
about is that access to specialist mental health addiction services.

(03:01):
So the real workforce constraints and what we're seeing as
high vacancy rates, particularly for special staff and psychiatrists and
that has a big impact on the system. So that's
where we really want to see some fast action.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Karen, appreciate your time as always, Karen Osborne, who's the
Mental Health and well Being Commissioned CEO.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
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