Service delivery

Despite 3.1 per cent of Australians experiencing severe mental ill-health, only 1.8 per cent of the population received state or territory funded community mental health care in 2017-18, resulting in a gap in community specialist public mental health care provision for approximately 328,700 Australians.

The ‘missing middle’ is a term used to describe people whose needs are not met by current mental health services. They are often too unwell for primary care, but not unwell enough for state-based services. They may have accessed services in the past year, however, these services were not able to deliver either the duration of care, or level of specialist care appropriate for more complex and serious mental ill-health.