The Statewide Mental Health and Wellbeing Service and Capital Plan 2024–2037 (the Plan) is a first for Victoria and a step towards a new approach to planning for mental health and wellbeing treatment, care and support.
The Plan will play an important role in the transformation of Victoria’s mental health and wellbeing system. It provides a framework to help guide and support government and sector decisions about future mental health and wellbeing services, including where they’re needed most – to ensure all Victorians have access to safe and high-quality care, closer to home.
The Plan will be used as a guide for future planning and investments for mental health and wellbeing services, with community mental health treatment, care and support at the centre.
It supports a new approach to planning that better anticipates and plans for the needs of Victorian consumers, families, carers and supporters. It translates the vision of the Royal Commission into opportunities to develop and expand new models of care such as Hospital in the Home, intensive community care and supported housing.
The plan will guide mental health and wellbeing service and capital planning by providing:
- a set of guiding principles to inform service and capital planning
- a service typology to provide a common language to plan mental health and wellbeing services
- analysis of currently available services and capital
- a method for assessing future system demand under three system scenarios
- estimates of the future demand for state-funded mental health and wellbeing services.
The demand modelling scenarios set out in the Plan provide an estimate of what needs can be expected in the future based on what is currently happening, and using evidence from research, expert and local knowledge and data. This approach to mental health planning will be ongoing and dynamic, with the Plan to be updated every five years, enabling timely updates in demand growth estimations.
The Plan will also guide health services, the community sector, peak bodies and the department to develop regional and local service plans consistent with Victoria’s mental health and wellbeing reform agenda.The plan responds to Recommendation 47 of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s mental health system and will help to build a more equitable and accessible mental health system in Victoria and deliver world-leading outcomes that Victorians deserve.
Updated