The Victorian Coalition's announcement of major mental health reforms, and the establishment of a new Youth Mental Health Centre of Excellence, is an important step towards transforming youth mental health in Victoria and resetting the state's response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System.
If elected at the state election in November, Opposition Leader Jess Wilson and Shadow Minister for Mental Health, Emma Kealy, have pledged to invest $5 million to masterplan a new youth mental health facility in Parkville, and establish a new Youth Mental Health Centre of Excellence for Victoria that would be overseen by Orygen. The Coalition would also independently review implementation of all the Royal Commission recommendations for mental health care in Victoria, as well as auditing the expenditure of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Levy.
Election commitments also include reforming the governance of what is currently the Parkville Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing Service (PYMHWS) and fully integrating its management with Orygen in line with the original recommendation from the Royal Commission.
This would guarantee that mental health services in the north-west of Melbourne would be streamlined and strengthened, with frontline care once again the priority. Acute, community and headspace primary care services would be vertically integrated in the north-west of Melbourne, as the Royal Commission envisaged – and enhanced by Orygen’s innovation and clinical research – to create and safeguard world-class services to young people.
Orygen Executive Director, Professor Patrick McGorry, said with Victoria in the grip of a youth mental health crisis, which is extending across the lifespan, the announcements represented a major step forward.
"Establishing Orygen as the Victorian Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health will enable a collaborative learning health system across the state, and will work with all Victorian health services to ensure that all young Victorians can access high-quality, evidence-based care when, where, and for as long as they need it.
"Young people with mental ill-health should never be admitted to adult inpatient facilities, and so the commitment to masterplan and build a state-of-the-art youth inpatient facility co-located at Parkville to serve north-west and regional Victoria is especially welcome and timely."
"More generally, while the 74 Royal Commission recommendations are a blueprint for reform, restoring a focus on severe mental illness across the lifespan and reprioritising the sequence for implementation will be an essential step which the Coalition has today endorsed.”
Professor McGorry said he looked forward to working with all sides of politics to ensure youth mental health and mental health reform in general was a top priority across party lines.
"We have always taken a bipartisan approach to advocacy and system reform," Prof. McGorry said.
"We look forward to hearing the government's future plans for youth mental health care and in the meantime working collaboratively across the board to ensure the best possible outcomes for young Victorians."