Thirty years following the creation of the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS), a review is long overdue. CHF believes that this review and a commitment to the regular evaluation of Medicare items is an essential to maintaining a world class health system and ensuring that funding is available for high value care.

In March 2019 CHF undertook a consumer survey on mental health services to hear from people with lived experiences about how the current health service system works for them. In that survey we asked about people’s experience of care, from a system integration and patient centred perspective and asked for ideas about how it could be improved.

The results from that survey echoed the evidence from a plethora of other reports on mental health service provision that there is a need to improve access to services and provide more choice. We agree that more needs to be done to help people access services closer to where they live and to make those services affordable.

CHF wants to see a service environment that helps reduce health inequities and helps people get the care they need when they need it. We support the development of stepped care models as a way of facilitating that and ensuring valuable and scarce resources are used to the best effect.

Click on the link below to read the CHF Response to the Report from the Psychiatry Clinical Committee