Mental Health Policy of Australia: Promoting Mental Health and Preventing Mental Illness

The Mental Health Policy of Australia aims to promote mental health and prevent mental illness. The policy has had a positive impact on the society, but there are still issues that need to be addressed. This article discusses the background of the policy, its impact, and recommendations for improvement.

Social Policy and Social work

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Description
Mental illness is a disease which causes the disturbance in thought and behaviour that results
is an inability to survive with the demands and routines of life. Mental health problem is
related to the excessive stress due to some reasons such as personal issues and many others.
Cancer, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, depression and the others diseases are also a
reason mental illness. There are many other factors which the mind of a person and cause the
mental illness such as genetic factors, biochemical imbalance, and environmental stress.
There are 200 types of mental illness from which some types are very common disorders
such as, dementia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders and many others (Biringer,
Davidson, Sundfør, Lier, and Borg, 2016). The main reason of mental illness is the
environmental stress which affects the mind of people. Changing in mood, personality and
personal habits are the symptoms of mental issue which also affect the mental health
conditions. The government make the policies which helps to resolve or reduce this issues.
Mental health policy is the policy which is made by the government to reduce these issues. In
this report, the discussion will be made on the topic of Mental Health policy of Australia.
Background
Mental health Policy is a step which is taken by the Australian government to promote the
mental health and prevent the people from mental illness. The main aim is to develop this
policy is to prevent the people from mental illness or to recover the patient from mental
illness. It also promote desegregation, destigmatization and ensure socio-economic and other
factors from which the people affected such as providing affordable quality of health and
social care to all the person and patients through within a right based framework (Kageyama,
Nakamura, Kobayashi, and Yokoyama, 2016). The main objective of Australian government
is to provide the universal access to mental health care. It helps the people in stable there

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mind. It has been seen that the people take wrong step in this type of mental issues such as
suicide and attempted suicide. It is a biggest reason of increasing the death rate of the country
and to reduce this government of Australia take steps towards this issue (Ducat, Rubenstein,
Philipson, and Anderson, 2015). The government of Australia set the goal of this policy is to
improve the understanding of the mental health in the country. Government of Australia
identify the social, biological and psychological determinents which affects the mental health
problems to provide the appropriate intervention. The death rate of Australia is 71 %of male
and 76% of Female. It probably increasing that is why the government of Australia take the
initiative to reduce the death rate of the country (Hooper, Foster, Knuiman, and Giles-Corti,
2018).
The fifth national mental health plan is currently being developed by the Australian Health
Minister Advisory Council. In this plan the government promote the mental health drug and
Alcohol Principal Committee to reduce these issues. the main objecrive and main goal of
Australan government to made this mental health policy is to promote the mental heal of
Australains.

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Discussion
As the government of Australia takes steps towards this mental health issue which directly
impact on the people health. The fifth plan of Australian government articulates was built on
the bases of four previous National Mental Health Plans, and the existing states and territory
of mental health and suicide prevention plan and national and mental health reform (Semrau,
et al., 2015).
From the last decade, the number of people participates in mental health setting by 51 % rate.
The step of Australia government has a positive impact on the people which is shown by the
caring of people towards their health and it also impact on the environment (Einarsen, and
Nielsen, 2015). Care is the primarily objective of the communities as compared to the
previous impatient services and this primary setting of communities is increased which
results shown in the Medicare Benefits Schedules. After built this policy, Australian
government developed the 1.3 million treatment plan and 4.9 million services which are
provided by the Psychologists and other health professionals through the various sources and
Medicare subsidised services (Johnson, et al., 2016). This step of Australian government is
not only helps the Australain but it also helps the other countries. The other areas and sectors
also develop the programs for people with the mental illness. These achievements become
Australia as a world leader in mental health system due to its quality of services and primary
objectives (Corrigan, Druss, and Perlick, 2014).
It has been observed that the impact of mental health programs also have some issues.
According to the National Survey of Mental and wellbeing, it is observed that the only one-
third of mental illness patient receives the mental health services each year. Demand for
mental health care is not appropriate and meet in the emergency periods which is a biggest
issue. Challenges in recruiting, retaining and supporting workforces helps in appropriate
competency start compromising the quantity and quality of care.

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Recommendations
Deliver process
It has been seen that there are many issues which a patient face at the time of emergency. The
delivery of medicines and care is delay due to which the causes of death rate is increases and
the policy following is not appropriate. The government should take step to resolve this issue.
It is responsibility of the communities to analyse the process of delivering which helps in
delivering the medicines. To deliver the services at the appropriate time has been measure by
the communities. So that the patients get the services in an appropriate time and get the
recovery the recovery quickly before any un-happening incidents (Fazel, Geddes, and Kushel,
2014).
Quality measures strategically
From the above analysis, it is founded that the one-third of patients receives the care and
medicines which shows that the policy is not accept in many areas of the country. The
government of Australia has to measure the outcomes from which it can easily estimate that
how many of people get the services and care. It also has to measure the quality which is
delivered to the patient so that the people get the services with the high quality. High quality
of services is helps the people in quick recovery of the patient. It also has to measure the
delivery of quantity so that the issue of delivering the services to the less number of people is
reduces and the large number of patient receives the issue (Gjolaj, Campos, Olier-Pino, and
Fernandez, 2015).
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it has been concluded that the health issue is a major reason of death
rate. It is also harmful for the human health as well as the society. The government of

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Australia take the initiative to reduce this issue by making the mental health policy. The main
aim of policy is to promote the mental health of Australia. It has the positive impact on the
society due to its positive impact Australia is known for its mental health treatment. But it has
some issues which is resolve by taking some actions such as measuring of quality and
delivering process. Although, the policy is appropriately applied in the country but it takes
some improvement to reduce these issues.

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References
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