The Government’s $10 million fund for innovative mental health and addiction initiatives will be open for applications later this month, the Mental Health Minister says.

Minister Matt Doocey, alongside Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in Auckland today, said successful proposals would need to address key priorities including:

• - Increasing access to mental health and addiction support
• - Protecting public specialist mental health and addiction services by reducing demand
• - Developing capacity in the mental health and addiction workforce
• - Using technology to drive productivity
• - Delivering scalable solutions for unmet need
• - Returning positive social return on investment with evidence
• - Achieving positive outcomes for target population groups that have evidence of poorer mental health outcomes than other groups
• - Being co-funded on a dollar-for-dollar matched funding basis

The fund would be open to all non-governmental organisations and community mental health and addiction providers, including iwi-based and other kaupapa Māori providers.

The full submission criteria and proposal process would be published on the Government Electronic Tender Service (GETS) website by the end of July, with contracts for round one expected to be in place later this year.

Doocey said a second round of funding could be held later this year, depending on how much was spent through the first round.

Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey will speak more about the targets today. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Ahead of the 2023 election, National pledged to empower the fund with “up to $20m”, which meant the $10m fund wasn’t technically a broken promise.

However, National’s policy document highlighted the benefit a $20m fund would derive, claiming it would deliver the “equivalent of more than 130,000 free counselling sessions from the NGO sector over four years”.

On Sunday, the Government published its roadmap for how it would spend about $85 billion in the public health system over the next three years.

Among the priorities outlined, five mental health and addiction targets were revealed.

They are:

• - 80% of people accessing specialist mental health and addiction services being seen within three weeks.
• - 80% of people accessing primary mental health and addiction services through the Access and Choice programme being seen within one week.
• - 95% of people presenting to EDs with mental health and addiction-related issues being admitted, discharged, or transferred within six hours.
• - Training 500 mental health and addiction professionals each year.
• - Allocating 25% of mental health and addiction investment towards prevention and early intervention.

In a statement today, Doocey said they were “ambitious targets”.

“I am aware we will not fix everything overnight, but these targets will help lift the focus on mental health and addiction and – more importantly – result in an improvement to the mental wellbeing of many New Zealanders,” he said.

“Timely access to services is crucial to support people’s recovery, help them to live well, and prevent deterioration in their mental health and overall quality of life.”

Earlier in the year, the Government announced five health targets. They are:

• - 95 per cent of children to be fully immunised at 24 months of age.
• - 95 per cent of patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours.
• - 95 per cent of patients to wait less than four months for a first specialist appointment.
• - 95 per cent of patients to wait less than four months for elective treatment.
• - 90 per cent of patients to receive cancer management within 31 days of the decision to treat

Progress on those targets would be reported quarterly.

Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.