The Royal Commission recommends that the Victorian Government, through the Mental Health Implementation Office, prepares for workforce reform and addresses workforce shortages by developing educational and training pathways and recruitment strategies by providing:
- public mental health services in areas of need, including in rural
and regional locations, through an expression of interest process that each
year offers a minimum of:
- 60 new funded graduate placements for allied health and other professionals
- 120 additional funded graduate placements for nurses
- postgraduate mental health nurse scholarships to 140 additional nurses each year that covers the full costs of study
- an agreed proportion of junior medical officers to undertake a psychiatry rotation, effective from 2021, with it being mandatory for all junior medical officers by 2023 or earlier
- overseas recruitment campaigns, including resources to assist mental health services to recruit internationally, new recruitment partnerships between organisations, and mentoring programs for new employees
- a ‘mental health leadership network’ with representation across the state and the various disciplines, including lived experience workforces, supported to participate collaboratively in new learning, training and mentorship opportunities
- the collation and publication of the profile of the mental health workforce across all geographic areas, disciplines, settings and sub-specialties
- mechanisms for continuing data collection and analysis of workforce gaps and projections, and the regular mapping of the workforce to meet these gaps.