Decreasing The Need For Acute Hospital Beds For Mental Health Patients In Australia

Background

Planning is defined as the concept of decision making that address and reflects on the future needs. The objective of Health service planning is to enhance the health status of a population by inducing equity, introduce equal access to health resources and increase the responsiveness of the health system in order to perceive the health needs of the population. Hence, health service planning includes setting future goals and introduce effective actions in order to achieve expected outcomes. In addition the health service planning aims to develop and support the health system in order to provide high quality service to the people with need (Eldredge et al., 2016). In order to prepare a health service planning it is important to identify the specific issue in a population that needs to be addressed with adequate interventions. It would help the process of health service planning to focus on a particular issue that has affected the health status of the population and introduce effective planning including future goals and strategies to achieve them in an effective manner (Abel-Smith, 2016). The assignment aims to provide health service planning in order to decrease the need for acute hospital beds for the mental health patients. In this regards the following paper will provide a brief discussion on the specific issue, identification of issue through effective planning tools and prioritize the strategies according to the severity of the issue. Such process would help to introduce strategies to decrease the need for acute hospital beds for the mental health patients in an effective manner.

Beside physical health issues mental health problem has contributed effectively to affect the health status of Australia. Mental health problems in Australia have covered a broad range of psychotic disorders. However, the common features of mental health issue has been found to affect the personality, social interaction, thought process and communication to an extent and such problems are difficult to diagnose clearly (Cuthbert & Insel, 2013). Due to such characteristics of mental illness it has become one of the most important concern of the health system across the world. In Australia it has been found that mental health problem has affected majority of the population in an effective manner. Study has indicated that 1/5 Australian people experience mental health problem per year (aihw.gov.au, 2018). Mental disorder has been considered as the third leading cause of increasing disability burden in the population and it has been found that disability due to mental illness has contributed to 27% of total years lost in Australia (mentalhealthcommission.gov.au, 2018). The prevalence of mental illness has been found to be high for the people aged between 18 to 24 years old (aihw.gov.au, 2018). 14% Australian have been identified that are suffering from severe anxiety disorder and among them women are more likely to seek treatment for their anxiety disorder (mentalhealthcommission.gov.au, 2018). Due to such high prevalence of mental health issue the demand for health service has increased. 35% people have been found to use mental health service in order to get rid of their mental health issue (aihw.gov.au, 2018). Thus, need for acute hospital beds have increased to an extent. Such increasing need has led to the consequence of high expenditure for mental health service. Statistics has shown that $ 9 million have been spent for mental health service in 2014-2016 (aihw.gov.au, 2018). Such increase in expenditure for mental health service could affect the overall health expenditure in the country. Thus, it is important to introduce adequate strategies to reduce the expenditure in an effective manner without compromising the needs of the mental health patients.

Aim of the Health Service Plan

This particular health service plan aims to decrease the demand for acute hospital beds for the mental health patients. The following paper will identify the contributing factors of high demand for acute hospital beds using planning tools and will introduce effective strategies to address such factors in an effective manner. While decreasing the needs for acute hospital beds for the patients with mental health problem, it is possible to reduce the expenditure of mental health service in Australia (Allison & Bastiampillai, 2015).

In order to introduce effective strategies to decrease the need for acute hospital beds for the patients with mental health issue it is important to identify the key factors that have contributed to the increase in acute hospital beds in mental health service. In this regards adequate assessment or planning tools require to be used to find out such factors. Following planning tools could be use to assess such factors-

Stakeholders are one of the most important parts of any planning program. It is important to understand the importance of stakeholders and their contribution to decrease the acute hospitals bed for mental health patient. Thus, stakeholder analysis is one of the most important parts in the health service planning (Fiorillo et al., 2013). It would help to identify the key stakeholders that are associated with mental health service. According to the study consumers and the family group play an important role in the mental health service because they are the representatives of the people with psychotic disorders (who.int, 2018). Mental health workers are also important factors of mental health service as they play vital role in the mental health service by providing care and health facilities. Professional association including health professionals, psychiatrist, psychologists, counsellor and others play the central role in the treatment of mental health patients (Fiorillo et al., 2013). The academic institutions that provide training to the mental health workers and professionals contribute to the mental health service in an effective manner (who.int, 2018). Government agencies are also important in mental health service as they provide policies, financial support, health education and social welfare to facilitate the mental health service (Fiorillo et al., 2013). Nongovernmental agencies also engage in different works associated with mental health service. In addition traditional health workers and some religious organizations are also involved in effective mental health service (who.int, 2018).

Strategies should include the involvement of most powerful stakeholder and reduce the power of some stakeholders that could affect the medical care of the mental health patients. The most powerful stakeholder in this case is the consumers and their family as the recovery of mental health issue depends on their interest, thus it is important to educate the consumers and their families so that they could understand the importance mental health and well-being and access adequate care in their own interest (Kidd, Kenny & McKinstry, 2015).  

Application of Planning Tools

Health need assessment is another important tool that helps in resource allocation. Need assessment is required to identify the needs of the population in an effective manner. It helps to maximize the health benefits through most efficient allocation of health resources. In addition it could help to mitigate the disputes of health resource allocation (Hebebrand et al., 2016). It has been found that when demands of the consumers are not going to be perceived due to the distribution of the health resources it is important to identify the health needs of the population in order to prioritise the health and distribute resources according to the health needs (Paniagua & Yamada, 2013). Study has reported that lack of awareness regarding the importance of mental well-being people fail to maintain healthy mental status (Hebebrand et al., 2016). Changes in lifestyle, environment, social condition and economy level of stress have been found to be increase in an effective manner. On the other hand depression and anxiety have played an important role in the development of mental health issue (Paniagua & Yamada, 2013). Thus, need for mental health education has increased. It has been found that symptoms of mental illness are difficult to diagnose clearly in early stage thus, most of the mild mental illness leads to the consequence of acute mental health issue and need for hospitalisation increases (Hebebrand et al., 2016). Hence, it is required to introduce effective diagnosis process. Additionally, patients have reported about waiting for a long time for diagnosis that delays the treatment process (abc.net.au, 2018). Thus, management and technologies need to be improved to reduce the waiting time of the patient and avoid delay in treatment (Hebebrand et al., 2016). 

Strength: The main strength of mental health service in Australia has been found to be the adequate resources such as availability of mental health organizations, support of mental health workers, mental health specialists, NGOs and effective mental health policies and financial support provided by the government. Such resources have helped to provide efficient service to the people with need (Schmied et al., 2013). Hence, resource management strategy should be included to increase the strength effectively (Allison & Bastiampillai, 2015).

Weakness: Adequate resources are available however, the allocation of resources is not effective. In Australia the indigenous people lack the access to adequate health resources due to social disadvantages. In addition they lack health education that leads to lack of management of mental well-being. Due to such situation they fail to identify the early signs and symptoms of mental disorder that leads to the condition of acute mental illness (Andrade et al., 2014). Hence, the strategy should be appropriate resource allocation and health education for the people to resolve the weakness (Allison & Bastiampillai, 2015).

Stakeholder Analysis

Opportunity: There are opportunities for the mental health service in Australia to improve the service by increasing prevention measures. The government could introduce effective prevention program and educate the people regarding the importance of mental well-being and its effect on physical health. Furthermore, they could introduce early diagnosis process to identify the mental disorder at the early stage to reduce the risk of acute mental illness. Promoting the prevention and early diagnosis of mental illness could help to create awareness within the population especially in indigenous people and could decrease the incidence of acute mental illness (aihw.gov.au, 2018).

Threat: Mental disorder is difficult to identify at early stage and late diagnosis could lead to the consequence of acute mental illness. Due to lack of education in rustic areas people are unable to understand the way of maintaining mental well-being.  Thus, risk of acute mental illness has increased that has led to increased demand for mental health service and hospitalisation due to psychotic problem (Andrade et al., 2014). Such condition can be considered as a major threat for mental health service. Thus, developing effective diagnosis process to identify the illness at early stage and reducing the risk of acute mental illness would be effective to reduce the threat (Kazdin & Rabbitt, 2013). 

Strategy: The plan to maintain mental health service in Australia is to provide high quality care with adequate resources and develop new strategies to promote mental well-being in order to reduce the prevalence of mental illness in the population. In this regards public and private mental health care centres are developed. In addition, community mental health service is also present (aihw.gov.au, 2018). Furthermore, adequate mental health policies such as National Mental Health Policy and different community programs have been found to contribute in mental health service (health.gov.au, 2018).

Structure: The mental health service in Australia focuses on the both the health care and social care service. From admission to diagnosis and care, each process is maintained with adequate management. Rules and regulation are also developed to provide quality service while maintaining nursing ethics and legal instructions (aihw.gov.au, 2018).

System: The members of the mental health service such as mental health workers, psychiatrist, psychologist, counsellor, community workers and government agencies play different role in order to provide effective service to the people with need (health.gov.au, 2018).

Skills: The required skills for a mental health worker or professional include critical thinking, cultural competency, nursing care and diagnosis, decision making, effective communication and emotional intelligence. In this regards appropriate learning approach and training is required to help the staffs to develop their skills (Forbes et al., 2016).

Needs Assessment

Style: Mostly the transformational and distributed leadership has been found to be adopted in mental health service and fellowship program is also developed for the leaders to encourage them to fulfil their commitment for mental health service by the National mental health commission (mentalhealthcommission.gov.au, 2018).

Staff: The workforce of mental health service has reflected inadequate numbers of mental health workers including experts. It has been found that most of the experts such as psychiatrist, nurses and practitioners work only in the metropolitan cities. Thus, the mental health service is currently facing workforce shortage (health.gov.au, 2018).

Shared values: The superordinate goals include the encouraging the mental health workforce to cooperate with each other and provide high quality service. In this regards it has been found that there is lack of collaboration between the primary health care service and specialist mental health service in Australia (health.gov.au, 2018). Thus, it is important to improve the collaboration to develop shared values in order to meet the requirement of the population regarding mental health.

The lack of coordination between primary health care service and specialist mental health service, workforce shortage and lack of interest of the specialist mental health professionals to work outside the metropolitan cities have affected the alignment between these 7 aspects. Hence, the first strategy should be to improve the collaboration between primary health care service and specialist mental health service and training may be helpful in this case (Allison & Bastiampillai, 2015). Second strategy should be introducing regulation on practice mental health of the professionals so that they show interest to provide service outside the metropolitan cities and improving policies and incentive structure for improving employee retention plan is required (Whiteford, Harris & Diminic, 2013).

Application of planning tools have helped to identify the area of priority for development or introducing effective interventions in order to decrease the need for acute hospital beds for mental health patients. In this regards the first strategy should be to improve the primary mental health service and diagnosis process of mental illness. This is because early diagnosis and effective treatment at primary care level could reduce the risk of acute stage of mental illness, thus, hospitalisation for acute mental health problem will be reduced, which may lead to the reduction in the demand for acute hospital beds (Kazdin & Rabbitt, 2013). Prevention plan for mental disorder should be the second priority. In this regards it is important to introduce effective mental health program and health education especially for the indigenous people, so that they could become aware about the effect of mental illness on physical and mental well-being and could learn about the proper way of maintaining healthy mental status (Kidd, Kenny & McKinstry, 2015). The third priority should be adequate and equal distribution of resources. It has been found that due to lack of access to health resources the prevalence of mental illness is higher in aboriginal people, thus it is important to focus on resource allocation to provide acute hospital beds only to the people with need (Allison & Bastiampillai, 2015). The fourth priority should be resolving the issue of workforce shortage. The Australian government needs to introduce adequate policies and incentive structure for improving employee retention plan and needs to introduce regulations so that mental health experts provide service beyond the metropolitan cities. It could help the mental health facilities to reach to the rustic areas and reduce the prevalence of acute mental illness, thus could decrease the need for hospitalisation and acute hospital beds for mental health patients (Whiteford, Harris & Diminic, 2013). Enhancing the collaboration within primary care and specialist mental care should be the fifth priority. Increasing the collaboration between the primary care and specialist care could help to access experts advice during primary thus could help to introduce adequate treatment in the early stage of mental health issue and reduce the demand for acute mental health care (aihw.gov.au, 2018). The sixth priority should be introducing and improving the training for mental workforce to adapt effective skills and improve ability to provide quality care to the patients so that they could manage their mental health problem in primary stage and reduce the risk of acute mental illness (Allison & Bastiampillai, 2015). Finally, it is important to introduce strategy to involve the stakeholders in the mental health service in order to improve the care service and develop effective government policies to facilitate the consumers (Fiorillo et al., 2013). Such strategies could help to address the mental health issues by preventing the illness or providing adequate care at early stage. In this way it could help to reduce the demand for acute mental health service and hospitalisation, hence could reduce the need for acute hospital beds for the mental health patients in an effective manner.

	1st priority	2nd priority	3rd priority	4th priority	5th priority	6th priority	7th priority
Improve the primary mental health service and diagnosis process of mental illness
Prevention plan
Equal distribution of resources
Resolving the issue of workforce shortage.
Enhancing the collaboration within primary care and specialist mental care
Training for mental workforce
Involving the stakeholders

Effective Strategies to Decrease the Need for Acute Hospital Beds for Mental Health Patients

Conclusion:

The above discussion has informed that, health service planning is one of the important aspects of developing care service to provide adequate health service to improve health condition. In Australia, it has been found that 1/5 people suffer from mental illness, thus, planning for mental health service has become one of the major concern. Thus, the study has focused on mental health service and aimed to decrease the need for acute hospital beds for mental health patients. In this regards adequate assessment tools have been used such as need assessment, stakeholder analysis, SWOT analysis and McKinsey 7s to identify the contributing factors of high demand for acute mental health service. It has been recommended that, with increasing prevention, improving primary care, diagnosis, adequate resource allocation, strengthen the mental health workforce, effective training of the staffs, increasing collaboration and involving key stakeholders in mental health service could help to provide adequate treatment in early stage of mental illness and could reduce the risk of acute mental disorder. Hence, demand for acute mental health service and hospitalisation will be decreased and need for acute hospital beds will be reduced.

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