After wading through the waffle of the latest National Mental Health Policy, Australian Doctor’s political editor Paul Smith is less than impressed.
Below is an edited version of his column first published in Australian Doctor. He raises some pointed questions for Rudd and Roxon:
AROUND the office of Australian Doctor you often hear the phrase “dull [...]
Melissa Sweet, health journalist and Croakey moderator, writes:
I suffered an adverse reaction at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) conference in Adelaide this week. It happened when one speaker casually referred to “heart sink patients”.
It’s not as if I hadn’t heard the term before. Anyone who regularly reads the medical mags [...]
Sydney psychiatrist Professor Alan Rosen has previously shared his concerns about the 4th National Mental Health Plan with Croakey readers here and here.
Now he has written a report for Croakey on a forum held in Melbourne last month to provide the Feds with some feedback from the outside world. He writes:
“Can the better bits [...]
Dr Lesley Russell, of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy, writes:
The Department of Health and Ageing website lists 129 mental health publications, of which 28 are described as ‘historical’ and 4 have been rescinded. Of these 129 publications, 11 have been published during the tenure of the Rudd Government, 89 were published between 2007 and [...]
In the lead-up to the budget, Croakey has asked an assortment of public health and health policy types about their wishes and expectations.
Michael Moore, CEO, Public Health Association of Australia
In the initial budget for this government was a huge effort on hospital waiting lists and $$$ through to the States for improvements at the tertiary [...]
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Also posted in Health inequalities, Hospitals, Indigenous health, alcohol, chronic diseases, health ethics, health reform, prevention, primary health care, private health insurance, public health, quality and safety of health care, tobacco control
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Tagged alcohol, federal budget, health budget, pathology, preventive health, private health insurance, radiology, tobacco
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As previously mentioned, Croakey has a copy of the evaluation of the 2003-2008 National Mental Health Plan, that was undertaken by US consultant Charles Curie and English psychiatrist Professor Graham Thornicroft.
Sydney psychiatrist Professor Alan Rosen has now evaluated the evaluation, and here are his conclusions:
“This summative evaluation report is very gentle, restrained and fairly [...]
The British Medical Association has just released a publication that many will find interesting, called Partners in Care: Stories about NHS patients and their doctors.
It includes more than a dozen stories of how doctors and their patients have worked together to overcome various health problems.
Stories include:
• A woman who was blind and in a wheelchair [...]
As the blurb to the right indicates, the Croakey blog takes a sharp interest in evidence-informed policy and practice, transparency and informed public debate.
In the interests of all these worthy causes, as well as giving the pot a well-deserved stir, we are launching a new Croakey initiative.
Let’s call it the Croakey Register of Unreleased Documents [...]
By Croakey
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Also posted in Croakey Register of Unreleased Documents, evidence-based issues, health and medical research, health reform, primary health care
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Tagged evaluations, National Mental Health Plan, national suicide prevention strategy, NHMRC, Primary Health Care Research Evaluation & Development program, public health research, reviews, transparency
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Following on from the previous post, Sydney psychiatrist Professor Alan Rosen* explains his concerns:
“The 4th Australian Mental Health Policy is a huge disappointment and
should never have been approved in this form. It is superficial,
complacent & self-congratulatory about weak partial achievements.
It glosses over many important deficiencies in the 2nd and 3rd policies and
plans. It lacks vision, [...]
March 31, 2009 – 12:18 pm
Lesley Russell and Robert Wells, of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney/Australian National University, write:
“The communiqué from the most recent meeting of the Australian Health Ministers Conference on March 5 announced the launch of Australia’s new National Mental Health Policy 2008, describing it as representing ‘a renewed commitment by all governments to [...]
