A federal funding boost for mental health services in Outback Queensland has been cautiously welcomed by Australia's peak psychology body who say stronger incentives are needed to grow locally-based regional workforces.
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Federal Health Minister Mark Butler announced $1.5 million over three years in grant funding for Outback Futures, a not-for-profit mental health support organisation, to trial a program aiming to improve rural and remote access to mental health professionals in Cloncurry, Winton, Longreach, Blackall-Tambo and Barcaldine.
"All Australians deserve to have access to high-quality health care when they need it, but we know access is a major issue in rural and remote areas," Mr Butler said.
The program is known as Work In Work Out, or simply WiWo and works by uniting selected communities with specialised mental health professionals for regular in-person clinics which are then followed up by telehealth appointments.
The program is "bush-informed", according to Outback Futures CEO Brent Sweeney, and looks to address two significant issues: poor access to health services and the high turnover rate of allied health professionals in rural and remote communities.
"Our WIWO model, which is bush informed, has allowed us to effectively and consistently provide a wide range of allied health services to our clients that they may not otherwise have been able to access because of their remoteness," Mr Sweeney said.
"Your postcode should not determine whether or not you can access allied health services and we applaud the Australian Government for looking at innovative ways to support people in rural and remote areas," he said.
Calls for greater local investment
Mr Butler said the project had shown great promise, however Australia's peak body for psychologists, the Australian Association of Psychologists (AAPi), issued calls for greater investment to grow the number of psychologists based in rural and remote areas.
AAPi Executive Director Tegan Carrison said there needed to be a focus on building local health workforces in rural and regional communities throughout Queensland.
"We know that a psychologist based in and working within a community is going to have a far more positive impact than a professional who flies or drives in and out," Ms Carrison said.
"If we are going to see the mental health needs of these country communities adequately serviced into the future, it is the local workforce that needs to grow," she said.
Whilst welcoming of the funding announcement, Ms Carrison said greater incentives were needed to attract students and psychologists to work in under-serviced bush communities.
"While telehealth is an invaluable tool, it is not suitable for everyone," she said.
"We want to focus on building local capacity for the long term.
"This starts by ensuring the existing regional and rural practices have financial stability and that client access barriers are removed through higher Medicare rebates.
"Then we need to invest in programs to bring students and provisional psychologists into under-served country communities."
A 2019 report by Rural and Remote Mental Health found Australians living in rural and remote locations accessed mental wellbeing services "significantly less than their city counterparts".
According to the report, government funding was "continually directed to a few large, city-based organisations that aren't well placed to provide in-person support programs outside major cities".
