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Speaker 1: Another target's update this morning. This one mental health fast

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Speaker 1: access to primary care achieved or beaten Specialist service metal beaten.

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Speaker 1: In the South Island, the number of people getting access

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Speaker 1: to primary support within a week jump from sixty six

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Speaker 1: percent to ninety one percent. This is called a four

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Speaker 1: e D wait times for mental health patients. Long way

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Speaker 1: to go. They're the same with staffing. Matt Docy, mental

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Speaker 1: Health Minister. Good morning ording Ryan. Are there fewer mental

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Speaker 1: people or is the system faster?

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Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I'd say just a big thank

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Speaker 2: you to the frontline mental health staff. They do an

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Speaker 2: amazing job and this is an ability to shine a

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Speaker 2: light on them. Look, there's still a long way to

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Speaker 2: go when you look at the veriability within the different

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Speaker 2: twenty health districts in New Zealand. But comes back to

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Speaker 2: what sort of country do we want to live in?

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Speaker 2: And that's why I've set targets one week for primary

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Speaker 2: mental health support and three week for specialists.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but are you improving on some of these figures

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Speaker 1: because there are fewer people requiring them? Or is the

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Speaker 1: system faster?

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Speaker 2: It's definitely faster. So if you look at a primary

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Speaker 2: mental health over the last four quarters, so we're going

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Speaker 2: to remember these are the first time we've ever set

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Speaker 2: targets for mental health in New Zealand. We've now got

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Speaker 2: twelve months worth of data. It does bounce around to

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Speaker 2: weep it, but if you look at primary mental health,

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Speaker 2: we're seeing a significant increase in numbers from around fifty

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Speaker 2: two thousand people are quarter up to but over sixty thousand.

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Speaker 1: So the numbers of people needing help are going up

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Speaker 1: and you're able to get them through even faster than

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Speaker 1: when they were fewer.

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Speaker 2: Very much so, because when these targets increase, as in

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Speaker 2: the percentage of people are getting one week support or

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Speaker 2: three week, the inverse is happening, which means the wasting

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Speaker 2: time is actually going down, which means more people can

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Speaker 2: be seen. And when you think about mental health, it's

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Speaker 2: a real red flag for people to be stuck on

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Speaker 2: weightless and so actually timiness is important. So that's why

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Speaker 2: three out of the five targets are around access.

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Speaker 1: How did these improvements compare to pre COVID, You know,

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Speaker 1: are we just getting back to where we were or

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Speaker 1: are we even better than that?

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Speaker 2: Oh? The difficulty is this is the first time we've

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Speaker 2: set targets for mental health in New Zealand, so as

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Speaker 2: the first mental health minister when I came in to

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Speaker 2: set these targets. So now we've only got twelve months

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Speaker 2: versus worth of data. But just to be clear, I'm

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Speaker 2: not a target fundamentalist. For me, the magic of these

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Speaker 2: targets is to have a line in the sand and

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Speaker 2: work with my officials to say what worked well to

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Speaker 2: get us there, what didn't work so well, what can

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Speaker 2: we improve next time? And you get that continuous improvement approach.

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Speaker 1: All of this. Does all of this mean that we'll

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Speaker 1: have fewer suicides?

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Speaker 2: Well, ultimately what we want to do is ensure people

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Speaker 2: in distress get support as quick as possible and hopefully

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Speaker 2: that will lead to fewer suicides.

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Speaker 1: Because what's the rate of them. How many deaths are

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Speaker 1: ye by suicide in New Zealand?

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Speaker 2: Well, sadly last year we lost six hundred and seventeen kiwis.

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Speaker 2: We haven't got the latest provisional statistics that will come

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Speaker 2: out I think by the end of October.

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Speaker 1: What would you like that to be? You know, you've

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Speaker 1: got to target all that.

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Speaker 2: No, we don't have a target for our suicide numbers,

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Speaker 2: because clearly one suicide is too many. I think when

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Speaker 2: you look at the rate per population, you know we're

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Speaker 2: working for that to be declining.

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Speaker 1: Matt to see mental health Mint's Appreciate your time. For

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