Dr Kathryn Turner, Executive Director, Metro North Mental Health

The past few months have continued to be very eventful. We have had the Parliamentary Mental Health Select Committee deliver their report; the budget announcement and subsequent funding for the sector including Metro North Mental Health; and the Department’s Business Case for Change. MNMH has taken a strong interest in these processes and provided feedback on all of these when the opportunities arose.

I’d like to thank all who have contributed to these responses to ensure we are strongly representing consumers, the community we serve and all our staff who are providing this care.

The budget was welcome news with well-needed, large funding increases to Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol services across the state. MNMH has been given enhanced funding across a range of services in the first year of the plan and will be built upon over the 5 years of the plan. The funding sees significant growth to our Child and Youth Services in the Redcliffe/Caboolture areas, permanent funding for the positions we have had in place with the Wellbeing funds, support for continuation of our Short Stay Pathway in TPCH with plans for specialist eating disorder beds within our existing beds, and a range of other enhancement including Drug and Alcohol Services, Peer workforce, Indigenous Mental Health workforce, community positions, and our statewide services. Future years include plans for acute inpatient beds including older persons, young adult and eating disorders. We certainly have a lot of work ahead of us in implementing these new funds and positions, but it’s very exciting to finally get the beginnings of the boost we need.

We are in the midst of responding to the 3rd COVID wave and that is bringing many challenges to our service once again. I am constantly amazed by the resilience and adaptability of our staff as everyone is responding to these challenges. It has been great to see MNMH pull together and support one another across our various facilities. Thank you to all of you for your efforts at this time.

I have enjoyed having the opportunity to meet up with teams across the service in recent weeks, including Caboolture, Biala and RBWH. We have had the opportunity to have a chat about some of the changes we are working together to implement such as embedding a Restorative Just Culture and what that means and building on great work already happening across the service with the introduction of the ASPIRES activities. I look forward to getting out to more teams. We’ll organise some more sessions including at TPCH, but also in the meantime, I would always be very happy to hear from team leaders and NUMS if there is an opportunity for me to drop by for a similar chat with your teams. Thanks again for your dedication and support for one another. I hope that, at this time, you can also find that important time for your own self-care.

Kind regards,

Kathryn