National Primary Mental Health Care Initiative

The National Primary Mental Health Care Initiative (NPMHCI) supports GPs in the provision of quality mental health care. The Initiative was established under the National Mental Health Strategy in June 1999.

The NPMHCI aims to:Useful Links

• provide accessible primary mental health care education and skills-based training to GPs and
• facilitate the development of partnerships between GPs and specialist mental health services - public, private and non-government.

The National Primary Mental Health Care Initiative includes:MindMatters Plus GP Resource Kit

• A National Primary Mental Health Coordinator based at ADGP;
• A Primary Mental Health Care Development & Liaison Officer (DLO) in each of the eight State/Territory Based Organisations (SBOs) of divisions of general practice; Overview of MindMatters Plus GP
• A National Primary Mental Health Care Clearing House (PARC);
• For Divisions

For General Practicehttp://som.flinders.edu.au/fusa/parc  

Twenty per cent of the Australian population over the age of 18 meets the criteria for a mental health problem or disorder.  Seventy five per cent of those seeking help are seen in the first instance by a GP.  GPs face a number of barriers to providing quality mental health services:For Young People

• Inadequate education and training Resources
• Inadequate appropriate remuneration
• Limited access to allied health services
• Limited access to specialist support.   References

The Better Outcomes in mental health care initiative seeks to address some of these barriers by improving the mental health care available to Australians, building on and working with previous measures to provide a broad range of care options.  The initiative also acknowledges that many GPs are already providing primary mental health care and aims to provide financial and other supports to address the barriers to management of mental health problems and disorders in general practice. 

Funding of $120.4 million over four years is available.  The key components of the initiative are:

• Education and training for GPs - to familiarise GPs with the initiative and to increase the mental health skills Overview of MindMatters Plus GP
• The 3 Step Mental Health Process - a Service Incentive Payment (SIP) is provided to encourage effective management of mental health problems by GPs through a 3 Step Mental Health Process that includes an assessment, a mental health plan and a review.    For Divisions
• Focussed Psychological Strategies - to encourage appropriately trained GPs  to provide evidence based focused psychological strategies (FPS) through the provision of Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) rebates  For General Practice
• Access to Allied Health Services - to enable GPs to access psychological and other allied health services to support their patients with mental health disorders; and For Schools
• Access to Psychiatrist Support - to better enable psychiatrists and GPs to participate in case conferencing and for psychiatrists to provide emergency advice to support GPs. For Young People

Medical practitioners including GPs but excluding specialists and consultant physicians can participate.  Participants need to complete the relevant training and be working from a PIP or accredited practice.For Parents

Introduction Dates 2002-2003Resources

 To find out more about training and associated resources to familiarise GPs with the Better Outcomes initiative and how they can participate,  click here .

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Programs > MindMatters+ GP Initiative It will be necessary to monitor progress and report outcomes of the Division/school partnership at intervals. To be able to do this effectively, monitoring needs to be built into the partnership from the beginning and reporting information collected as the partnership progresses. The requirements for monitoring and reporting relate mostly to documenting decisions and processes and developing measures of progress. An example of a monitoring and reporting format is provided at > MindMatters Plus GP Resource Kit > Recent NewsFor Divisions > Monitoring and reporting outcomes Monitoring and reporting outcomes The following types of information will be useful for monitoring and reporting the outcomes of the Division/school partnership: enablers and barriers of the activities and strategies ways to measure that the activities and strategies are in place (process indicators) main aim of the partnership objectives and outcomes to be achieved ADGP releases Federal Budget Submission 2003-04activities and strategies to be undertaken timeline for implementation of activities and strategies roles and responsibilities of partners in implementation ways to measure that outcomes have been achieved (outcome indicators). Resource 16: Example of reporting format

 

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