Despite boost to Australia mental health funding, latest schizophrenia drug still blocked

As part of its latest budget announcement, Australia’s federal government has allocated A$2.2 billion ($2.37 billion) funding for mental health, under a five-year reform package. These reforms are aimed at improving the lives of thousands of Australians with mental illness by:

• Providing more intensive support services, and better co-ordinating those services, for people with severe and persistent mental illness who have complex care needs;
• Targeting support to areas and communities that need it most, such as Indigenous communities and socioeconomically disadvantaged areas that are underserviced by the current system; and
• Helping to detect potential mental health problems in the early years, and supporting young people who struggle with mental illness.

Pharma trade group Medicines Australia has welcomed the funding but questions the logic of blocking patient access to the latest schizophrenia medicine. Funding for a mental health commission, early intervention programs and better coordination of social and clinical services for those with a mental illness is an important step towards ensuring the 1 million Australians living with depression are better supported, it said.