What the Royal Commission said
The workforce underpins the effective functioning of the mental health and wellbeing system.
The Royal Commission recommended a range of reforms to address serious workforce shortages and prepare for reform.
It recommended new education, training and recruitment strategies to attract, train and build a workforce to support Victoria’s mental health and wellbeing system.
The recommendation called for:
- 60 new funded graduate placements for allied health and other professionals
- 120 extra funded graduate positions for nurses
- 140 fully funded postgraduate mental health nurse scholarships annually
- an agreed proportion of junior medical officers to undertake a psychiatry rotation, with it being mandatory for all junior medical officers by 2023 or earlier
- a representative and collaborative mental health leadership network
- improved workforce data collection and use
- improved international recruitment processes including overseas campaigns, resources to support services and partnerships between organisations.
The reform offers an opportunity to overcome challenges faced by the mental health workforce in Victoria. Some of the challenges include:
- many resources are overstretched
- workforce shortages
- the need to develop more pathways into employment
- workforce stigma
- a lack of specialist skill development
- attracting people back to public mental health
- difficulty retaining employees in the workforce.
What are we doing?
In response to the Royal Commission’s interim report, the Victorian Government invested in programs to increase the number of workers in the system and further develop educational and training pathways and recruitment strategies. This was followed by further $206.3 million investment in the 2021-22 Victorian State Budget to build workforce growth, training and capability.
Initiatives include:
Junior Medical Officers
To improve mental health capability in the system, we are working to encourage more junior doctors to complete a psychiatry rotation to learn mental health skills and consider specialising in psychiatry.
Since 2021, we have funded new Junior Medical Officer positions and supervisors. In line with the Australian Medical Council’s new National Framework for Prevocational medical training, psychiatry rotations will remain encouraged but not mandated. We continue to work towards an agreed target of 70 per cent of all Junior Medical Officers completing a psychiatry rotation.
We have worked with the sector and people with lived experience of mental illness to develop a framework to support Junior Medical Officer rotations to ensure they have a positive experience.
Mental health nursing
We are working closely with the sector to grow the mental health nursing workforce.
From 2021 we have increased the number of graduate mental health nurse positions, graduate educators, and new mental health postgraduate nursing scholarships.
Allied health graduate mental health
The Allied Health Graduate Program was established to offer more allied health early career staff the opportunity to access tailored education and experience to become independent mental health clinicians.
Occupational therapy, social work and psychology were the first disciplines included in this program. We have worked with Eastern Health to design an Allied Health Mental Health Graduate program with learning resources for graduates and educators and the Centre for Mental Health Learning is continuing to deliver learning opportunities and program delivery support.
Attracting professionals to the mental health workforce
The Royal Commission identified workforce as a critical enabler of reform.
An international recruitment program operated from June 2022 until January 2024 to promote and build our workforce. The campaign targeted experienced clinical staff in key international jurisdictions.
A domestic media campaign titled ‘Jobs that Matter’ was also launched in September 2023 to raise awareness of opportunities to join the Victorian mental health and wellbeing workforce.
Developing mental health leadership
We are in the early stages of planning to develop a collaborative mental health leadership network that will form part of the Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and .
Understanding our workforce and planning for the future
Limited workforce data is a significant challenge in planning the workforce needs for the future.
In 2021, we launched a workforce census which is conducted annually. The annual census provides the current mental health workforce profile in all Victorian specialist public mental health services.
The census is a first step to improve our data collection capability. It provides valuable data about more than 7000 workers across all locations, disciplines, settings and sub-specialties.
It includes total numbers of full-time equivalent staff, headcount, and vacancy numbers for all staff employed, including all service delivery disciplines, education, administration, and management positions.
It also details the lived experience workforces employed by specialist mental health services. The data will contribute to the development of a sustainable workforce that is diverse, skilled and large enough to deliver effective treatment, care and support to Victorians with mental illness or psychological distress.
Reviewed 10 October 2024