161 Chapter 13 Organising Care for the Mentally Ill in Australia Julie Henderson, Bonnie Walter When you inish this chapter you should be able to: • Briely describe the features of the mental health care system in Australia • Outline some of the changes in the delivery of mental health care in Australia from settlement to the present • Identify the goals of the National Mental Health Strategy • Describe the changes in service delivery that have arisen from the National Mental Health Strategy • Identify the health professionals who provide care to the mentally ill • Describe a recovery approach to mental health care Introduction his chapter provides an overview of the delivery of mental health care in Australia. In Chapter 1, we read about the impact of New Public Management on the delivery of health care. Among the changes identiied are the introduction of practices from the private market to increase the eicacy and productivity of health care; the out- sourcing of service delivery and competitive tendering by private companies to provide services. his chapter picks up on some of those themes arguing that mental health care delivery in Australia from the 1990s has adopted features of a market model. Some of the changes identiied in this chapter are the reduction of the role of the state in providing mental health care; privatising care through tendering by non-government organisations for service delivery and the use of private for- proit primary care services and greater consumer and carer involvement in the control and management of mental health services. he World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that 450 million people have mental health disorders worldwide, with one person in four experiencing some form of mental health problems during their life (WHO 2004, p. 13). In Australia, the 1997 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing found that 17.7% of the population had experienced mental health problems in the last 12 months, while a more recent study of people living within the community found that 10.7% had long-term mental health problems (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, AIHW 2007b, p. 4). Willis_Chapter 13_main.indd 161 12/23/2011 2:40:55 PM To protect the rights of the author(s) and publisher we inform you that this PDF is an uncorrected proof for internal business use only by the author(s), editor(s), reviewer(s), Elsevier and typesetter Toppan Best-set. It is not allowed to publish this proof online or in print. This proof copy is the copyright property of the publisher and is conidential until formal publication.