Workforce shortages remain an ongoing problem for Counties Manukau Health's Mental Health and Addiction division, according to a new DHB report, despite growing demand for its services.
File image. Photo: RNZ / Patrice Allen
The issue was highlighted in a new report to the Counties Manukau District Health Board's Hospital Advisory Committee which stated:
"Across the CM Health Mental Health and Addiction division there continues to be areas with significant workforce recruitment and retention issues. Intake and assessment is another team that is experiencing high vacancies and is working to ensure an acute response is able to be provided across CM Health.
"Although there has been a significant improvement in the staffing numbers, which has assisted with team morale and service delivery, it is important to acknowledge that a number of the new staff are relatively junior in their career."
A recent paper to the DHB committee said the number of patients hadn't dropped off post-lockdown and the Mental Health and Addiction division expects the trend to continue.
Reasons for the increased demand included people facing greater financial strain due to unemployment, limited ability to cope with new norms and the fall-out from family violence.
Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson said he couldn't comment specifically on the Counties Manukau DHB's situation. But the shortage of mental health workers was a nationwide issue and it would take time to fix it after years of neglect.
Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
"Building the mental health workforce across the country is a key challenge identified in He Ara Oranga. After more than a decade of neglect and underfunding, the workforce was at a low ebb by 2018," Robinson said.
"This cannot be fixed quickly. Resourcing of services and focusing on a wider range of services along with increasing staff are just part of the solution.
"For example more use needs to be made of peer support workers, more Māori and Pasifika are needed in the workforce and more focus is needed on culturally relevant early support services to assist people before they become acutely distressed and unwell."
He said some progress had been made in those areas, but had been slowed by the response to Covid-19.
"Overall, workforce development is not a quick fix issue."
The He Ara Oranga report was released in 2018 after a government inquiry into mental health and addiction services. It followed widespread concern about mental health services, within the sector and the broader community.
The inquiry talked to mental health and addiction workers around the country who described being overworked and suffering from burn-out.
The report said while there was a need to attract more people to work in mental health and addiction services and to retain current staff, there was a lack of career planning and limited training and professional development in the sector. It also highlighted a short-term focus on immediate staffing needs, the lack of a clear "pipeline" of new skilled staff and inadequate facilities.
New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) professional nursing advisor Suzanne Rolls shared Robinson's concerns and agreed there was a nationwide lack of mental health workers, including nurses.
"There's a significant shortage and that's across primary and hospital in-patient services," she said.
Rolls said the issues highlighted in the He Ara Oranga report about mental health and addiction workers around the country being overworked and suffering from burn-out were unfortunately accurate.
She said while the government and individual DHBs had looked at the issue since the release of the He Ara Oranga report, more needed to be done.
"[They] have to join forces and come up with a nursing workforce plan. I think they are trying to do that, but it needs to be funded."
Counties Manukau DHB was contacted for this story, but said questions would be processed as an OIA request.
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