Mental health and addiction targets performance
Our progress towards achieving the mental health and addiction targets.
Pātiki and Waharua Kōpito patterns
On this page
Mental health and addiction targets focus on:
- faster access to specialist services
- faster access to primary services
- shorter stays in emergency departments
- increased workforce development
- prevention and early intervention
The targets set clear expectations for mental health and addiction system performance, to ensure people can get the help they need when they need it and are supported to recover, to live well and to stay well.
Target results
The mental health and addiction target results for Quarter Three 2024/25.
Resources
Mental health and addiction targets - Factsheets
Data caveats
Increased mental health and addiction workforce development
Increased mental health and addiction workforce development
The definition ‘Train 500 mental health and addiction professionals each year’ includes clinical psychology interns, new entry to specialist practice nurses, occupational therapists, social workers and stage one psychiatry registrars. This quarter is only a partial result as it represents only the first semester intake for the 2025 academic year, and some professions also have a second semester intake. The full 2025 academic year result will not be available until quarter two 2025/26.
Strengthened focus on prevention and early intervention
Strengthened focus on prevention and early intervention
This measure is reported annually, with the 2024/25 result first reported in quarter two 2024/25. The information to report on this measure is unable to be automatically derived from our financial systems so the result has been manually extracted for the 2024/25 year. As a result, data is not reliable and the reported result is a best estimate. Improving the reliability of results will require improved connectivity of data across our information systems. Work is underway to scope improvements and will inform the development of an action plan. Results are likely to shift as data accuracy improves.
Shorter mental health and addiction-related related stays in emergency departments
Shorter mental health and addiction-related related stays in emergency departments
This measure is based on a subset of 8 of the 158 presenting complaint SNOMED (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine) codes (abnormal behaviour, aggression, anxiety, crisis, insomnia, mental health issue, self-harm, and suicidal ideation). The subset of codes includes patients who do not require secondary mental health services and excludes some who do. This measure does not reliably identify any addiction-related events. ED staff enter a SNOMED code for presenting complaint at the triage stage of an ED presentation. It does not account for the complexities of acute presentations, for example people presenting with combinations of physical and mental symptoms, or presentations where the actual problem is not immediately obvious. SNOMED has not been fully implemented at all EDs. Some districts provide this detail through a hierarchical mapping exercise involving recorded symptoms, discharge diagnosis and ICD diagnoses fields, which makes comparisons between districts difficult.
In quarter two, Auckland district implemented TrakCare, a new patient administration system, which has impacted data completeness for this measure. It will take some time for completeness to improve, so results published for Auckland may show slight variations in future reporting due to subsequent data being more complete.
Faster access to specialist mental health and addiction services
Faster access to specialist mental health and addiction services
The Access and Choice data collection involves providers from Integrated Primary Mental Health and Addictions Services, youth, Pacific and kaupapa Māori services.
IPMHA providers account for approximately 70 per cent of the activity and this is provided at event level. Inclusion of referral date was mandated in October 2024 and makes the ability to measure waiting times more accurate. This measure is limited to IPMHA providers in quarter one to quarter three.
There is a staged plan to include the other providers data at event level from quarter four 2024/25 through to 2026/27 in the Access and Choice programme.
Tairāwhiti data is captured differently and does not align with the graphs presented for this measure, so it has not been included. Tairāwhiti is geographically diverse and isolated. Services are delivered in a more collaborative and integrated model, which enables greater flexibility to deliver services in a range of settings and to engage as many whānau as possible. The data collected from all Tairāwhiti Access and Choice services is slightly different to what is collected in other districts, especially in regard to the Integrated Primary Mental Health and Addiction Service. Because of this, Tairāwhiti data cannot currently be integrated with the wider data set as it is not an exact match.
Previous results
2024/25 - Quarter Two
2024/25 - Quarter Two
Mental health and addiction target results - 2024/25, Quarter Two [PDF, 887 KB]
Mental health and addiction target results - 2024/25, Quarter Two [PPTX, 821 KB]
Data caveats
Systems – Access and Choice
Inclusion of referral date was mandated in October 2024. As such, data is incomplete for quarter 2. Data for Tairāwhiti and Midcentral is unavailable for quarter 2.
This quarter, youth, Māori and Pacific providers are not included in the results as they are not yet submitting data at a patient level. These providers represent approximately 30 per cent of activity in the Access and Choice programme. Work is underway to ensure we can include these providers in future quarters.
Faster access to specialist mental health and addiction services
Measurement change occurred for 2024/25 to support more current and inclusive monitoring. We have moved from a rolling 12 month average to measuring each quarter separately, by activity seen dates and inclusion of addiction services. This is reflected in results presented for any prior quarters in this report. Results for quarter are estimated to be under-reported by 2 per cent due to delays in the data pipeline.
Shorter mental health and addiction-related stays in emergency departments
Quarter 2 reporting is under-estimated due to a high proportion (9 per cent) of ED presentations having no specific presenting complaint recorded. Presenting complaint is required to identify MH&A related presentations. The result excludes three level 2 ED facilities (not publicly funded).This quarter, Auckland district implemented TrakCare, a new patient administration system, which has impacted data completeness for this measure. It will take some time for completeness to improve, and results published for Auckland may show slight variations in future reports due to subsequent data being more complete.This result does not include addiction-related presentations to ED.
Increased mental health and addiction workforce development
Workforce training figures exclude psychiatry training figures in quarter 1. The definition only includes psychology interns, new entry to specialist practice nurses, occupational therapists, social workers and stage one psychiatry registrars. Other key workforces including support workers and alcohol and drug practitioners cannot be measured at this stage but work will be undertaken to add them in the future.The number of professionals entering training during 2024 is unchanged since Q1. The figure excludes psychiatry registrars and hence underestimates performance.
2024/25 - Quarter One
Send us your feedback
If you have feedback on our mental health and addiction targets performance, please use our feedback form (external link).