The Allan Labor Government continues to boost the capacity of community mental health services – with seven health services receiving funding through the Community Mental Health Expansion Program.

Minister for Mental Health Ingrid Stitt today announced the recipients of the $33.4 million program to strengthen community mental health services and address service gaps identified by the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System.

Boosting the capacity of community-based mental health services provides an alternative to in-patient treatment in the public hospital system and ensures that community mental health services can provide timely, appropriate care to better the mental health outcomes for Victorians.

As part of the Program, Western Health received $6 million to redevelop its Harvester Clinic Mental Health Service in Sunshine with new workstations to introduce extended opening hours and continue delivering high standard, consumer-focused care.

Goulburn Valley Health also received over $4.2 million to relocate its Adult Community Mental Health and Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services offsite to provide updated facilities with increased capacity for the community mental health services.

The program is focused on supporting public community mental health services expand their services through infrastructure upgrades to better address demand pressures and reduce wait times, meaning Victorians experiencing mental health challenges will have access to care when and where it’s needed, closer to home.

Projects successful in securing funding through the Labor Government’s Community Mental Health Expansion Program are supported by the Victorian Health Building Authority (VHBA) and delivered by the publicly funded health service provider.

Since the Royal Commission handed down its final report, significant progress has been made with work underway to implement over 90 per cent of its recommendations and more than $6 billion invested in the system over the past three years – the largest investment in mental health of any state in Australia.

Further information on the program, including guidelines and the submission process, can be found here: vhba.vic.gov.au/ community-mental-health-expansion-program.