Briefing to Incoming Ministers publicly released

Our Briefing to Incoming Ministers (BIM) is now publicly available. In this document we provide our advice on priorities for the new government .   

The briefings provide the Minister of Health and Minister for Mental Health with information on Te Hiringa Mahara's role, purpose and organisational structure. The briefing is our perspective on an overview of mental health and wellbeing in New Zealand, and outlines current issues and opportunities in these portfolios.

We make the case for action on the things we believe will make a significant impact across the system:

• providing accessible services, particularly for Māori, rangatahi and young people
• reducing the use of compulsory treatment 
• making it easy for communities to support their wellbeing.

Alongside these, we highlight a few actions that can be taken immediately:

• introducing the Member’s Bill Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (Improving Mental Health Outcomes) Amendment Bill as a Government Bill, to include a mental health and wellbeing strategy in the Act.
• including a mental health target in the suite of proposed health targets, focused on improving access to mental health and addiction services
• allocating funding and commissioning a phased prevalence survey of mental health and wellbeing starting with children and young people.

All public sector agencies and Crown Entities are required to produce a BIM following a general election. The document is being proactively released to promote openness and transparency in how we work with Ministers.

You can read the BIM on our Ministerial reports page