Office of the Director of Mental Health Annual Report 2016

This annual report presents information and statistics that serve as indicators of quality for our mental health services. Active monitoring of services is vital to ensuring New Zealanders are receiving quality mental health care.

Mental health care in New Zealand continues on a transformational journey. In 2016 a record number of people accessed specialist mental health and addiction services. This increase is consistent with international trends, and has occurred in the context of population growth, improved non-governmental organisation reporting, growing social awareness and increasingly open discussion of mental health issues.

More New Zealanders are seeking and receiving mental health care, which is positive. But services are experiencing increasing pressure. We must continue to ensure that services are best placed to respond to the changing needs of the populations they serve.

This report is divided into three main sections.

• Context – an overview of the legislative and service delivery contexts in which the Office operates.
• Activities for 2016 – the work carried out by the Office in 2016.
• Ensuring service quality – statistical information on the use of compulsory mental health assessment and treatment, seclusion, family/whānau consultation, electroconvulsive therapy, reportable deaths, suicide and opioid substitution treatment during 2016.