The Government needs to do a better job of getting money out the door to mental health services so they can make a more meaningful difference in people's lives, National's Mental Health spokesperson Matt Doocey says.
"Mental health is just as important as physical health. New Zealanders should be able to access high quality services no matter where they live.
"Funding announcements are all well and good but they're meaningless if the money isn't getting where it needs to go. Unfortunately, this Government hasn't done a good enough job of getting money to frontline services fast enough.
"The health minister announced $455 million in last year's Budget for frontline mental health workers in general practices, but admitted to my office recently that only $3.2 million had been spent to date. He also didn't know how many mental health workers were working in this new service.
"Today's re-announcement of $40 million for mental health services reveals this new frontline service is only operating in 22 practices currently. This is less than two per cent of New Zealand's GP practices.
"Expanding this by 100 practices in 14 months' time will only increase coverage to less than 10 per cent of GPs nationwide. This is not the level of service New Zealanders were told they were getting by the health minister a year ago.
"David Clark is publicly blaming GP practices and the mental health workforce for the delay but I have been contacted by a number of primary care mental health counselors who are unable to respond to growing demand from Covid-19 because there is no funding available.
"The Government needs to do better given the likelihood that we will see huge demand for mental health services as a result of Covid-19 and the coming economic downturn."
