Older people's mental health in rural areas: Converting policy into service development, service access and a sustainable workforce
- 24 June 2019
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Australian Journal of Rural Health
- Vol. 27 (4), 358-365
- https://doi.org/10.1111/ajr.12529
Abstract
This paper describes the older people's mental health workforce development, policy development and implementation process and quantifies the rural service delivery and access impacts over a 15‐year period in New South Wales. It highlights the factors that are considered to be critical to successful rural service development such as commitment to funding parity, investment in strong local service leadership, and development of innovative, locally adapted rural service models. Building on these foundations, the Older People's Mental Health Program in New South Wales was able to address key challenges relating to service access in rural health and develop new, sustainable specialist older people's mental health service networks. A sustained focus on policy and implementation which explicitly supports rural older people's mental health service enhancement, and development of evidence‐based models of care, has significantly improved access to specialist mental health care for older people in rural areas. It has delivered 23 new rural older people's mental health community teams and a 440% increase in the number of people accessing these teams. It has also doubled the number of acute inpatient units and established new specialist mental health‐residential aged care partnership services in rural New South Wales. It has resulted in increased access to services for the “older old,” while not diminishing older people's rates of access to general adult mental health services. It has also supported innovative, sustainable rural service models such as “hub and spoke” models and step‐up step‐down inpatient services that build on existing health and hospital infrastructure and link geographically dispersed specialist clinicians and services together in rural service delivery.Keywords
This publication has 19 references indexed in Scilit:
- Factors relating to high psychological distress in Indigenous Australians and their contribution to Indigenous–non‐Indigenous disparitiesAustralian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 2018
- The health of older people in Australia: 85 is the new 65Australian Journal of Rural Health, 2017
- Integrating rural health careAustralian Journal of Rural Health, 2017
- Ageing and mental health: changes in self-reported health due to physical illness and mental health status with consecutive cross-sectional analysesBMJ Open, 2017
- Understanding the influence of community characteristics on wellness for rural older adults: A meta-synthesisJournal of Rural Studies, 2016
- Older people as assets in disaster preparedness, response and recovery: lessons from regional AustraliaAgeing and Society, 2015
- The Mental Health Outcomes of Drought: A Systematic Review and Causal Process DiagramInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2015
- Carers' experiences of accessing and navigating mental health care for older people in a rural area in AustraliaAging & Mental Health, 2015
- A systematic review of physical illness, functional disability, and suicidal behaviour among older adultsAging & Mental Health, 2015
- Flooding and Mental Health: A Systematic Mapping ReviewPLOS ONE, 2015