Reader ask: How are you making mental health services more affordable?

Mental health services remains a hot topic during the federal election campaign, with questions around affordability continuing to swirl. YOUR READER QUESTIONS

Mental health services remains a hot topic during the federal election campaign, with questions around affordability continuing to swirl.

In a reader question on day three of the campaign, Anthony Albanese was quizzed on the topic after Nathan from Griffin in Queensland asked: “What are you doing to help people access mental health services and make it more affordable?”

See the question answered and grill the leaders in the survey below >>>

Anthony Albanese

During a visit to an eastern Perth hospital on Monday, Anthony Albanese and Health Minister Mark Butler answered a reader question on mental healthcare accessibility.

When asked what his government was doing to make mental health services more affordable, the Prime Minister pointed to the funding of Medicare mental health clinics.

“One of the things that we’ve done on top of Medicare urgent care clinics is to have Medicare mental health centres. Now we’ve funded these. These are making an enormous difference, and that comes on top of the specific programs we have for youth mental health as well,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the campaign trail. Picture: Jason Edwards/NewsWire

The comments come after mental health advocates criticised the government for neglecting funding for mental health initiatives in last week’s budget.

Health Minister Mark Butler said he believed the best thing the government could do to improve access to mental health services was expand GP bulk billing.

“We know there’s a very significant pressure in the community around this,” he said.

“The most important thing we do, first of all is to expand bulk billing access to GPs. GPs do more mental health work than any other part of the health workforce, and the investments we’ve made in bulk billing cover mental health items.”

He also spoke about additional investments made to mental health service Headspace.

Peter Dutton

Meanwhile in his budget reply speech last week, Peter Dutton pledged $400 million for youth mental health services. He has also said he will raise the number of subsidised psychology sessions from 10 to 20.

Originally published as Reader ask: How are you making mental health services more affordable?