Rethinking our mental health ‘system’

We all know the stats. 1 in 4 (or 1.25million) people in New Zealand experience mental distress in a given year. Our public health services are equipped to serve just over 181,000 people annually (latest data 2018). Private sector psychologists are estimated to have the capacity to serve a further 200,000 per year. That leaves a gap of more than 800,000 people annually.

The public health system cannot expand to fill this gap. Nor should it. Our health system is not set up for innovation. It’s an underfunded and complex system to navigate, resulting in extremely long waiting times, staff burnout, and a lack of responsiveness to the changing needs of our society. Our private sector services have similar waiting times due to a lack of capacity, and are unaffordable for many. Our people deserve better.

How can we ensure that every person in Aotearoa gets the wellbeing support they need?

We need an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, startups and private sector players that can complement our public services to dramatically expand the choice, affordability, accessibility, and diversity of support available.

We need to work across sectors, recognising all the elements of life that contribute to our mental wellbeing, and ensure support is staying relevant to our changing society. We need to collaborate with, and prioritise the experience of, tangata whai ora to ensure an ease of accessing quality support, no matter where anyone is on their journey.

So why is our health system not there already? There are many reasons, but to highlight a few:

• innovators are not in the room—we’re starting with a health system that is disconnected from innovators and those working in other issues that contribute to our wellbeing — housing, incomes, physical health etc.
• it’s risky—Innovation is also not something that typically goes hand in hand with mental health. Innovation requires taking risks. Mental health, rightly, is risk averse to keep people safe. We need to find a way to balance this.
• resources are scarce—We don’t have enough talent, capital, and resource focusing on this, because it’s hard and takes incredible passion. We’ve identified 75+ entrepreneurs, but with a typical startup fail rate of almost 60% over the first 5 years (across any sector), we’ll need a lot more than this to fill the gap in support, especially if we want people to have a choice. (Get in touch if you don’t think you’re on our list, we’d love to hear from you!)

Our mental health system needs new innovators to succeed. We’ll all benefit from leveraging new innovative thinking alongside the depth of experience from existing providers.

To achieve this, we all—innovators, investors, funders, mentors, peers, technical experts, providers, government—need to know how we are contributing to this ecosystem.

So here’s what we’re doing:

Ember Innovations is working to build the pipeline of entrepreneurs, support them to success, and ensure that they’ve got the capital to scale their impact.

We’re building a network and community of innovators and entrepreneurs to learn and share insights. We’re amplifying their voice to ensure they’re integral to the future of Aotearoa’s wellbeing support.

We’re filling a clear gap to support new innovation and startups navigate the tricky balance to create sustainable, high impact wellbeing ventures. We’re anchoring ourselves in Aotearoa’s indigenous knowledge, keeping wellbeing at the centre of everything we do. We’ll leverage partnerships to ensure we’re adding value, not replicating or competing with existing startup support. To ensure we’re supporting the best ventures, we’re steadfastly focused on ensuring that lived experience is at the centre of all our kaupapa.

What’s your role in our mental health ecosystem, or what could it evolve to be?

• Are you an entrepreneur expanding support offerings?
• Are you interested in mentoring or supporting new ideas?
• Are you looking to invest or fund new ideas?

Let us know, we’d love to hear from you, in any way you might like to join us on this journey to ensure that every person in Aotearoa has the wellbeing support they need.