Mental Health Pricing Project
Te Kokiri: The Mental Health and Addiction Action Plan 2006-2015 sets out ten leading challenges and one of these challenges is Funding Mechanisms for Recovery. The Mental Health Pricing Project is being undertaken to gather information on mental health costs in order to identify, analyse and seek to understand drivers across the sector over successive financial years.
Background
The Mental Health Pricing Project is a subset of the National Pricing Programme (NPP). The use of a national price is not mandatory and prices differ between services and regions for the same purchase units. This may be appropriate however both funders and providers need to be able to understand the cost drivers of individual services. This will help when comparisons are made or when the services being delivered appear to differ from provider to provider or where there is a significant price differential between providers.
NGOs can also use the information to gain a better understanding of the full cost of the services they provide.
Progress
During late 2006, six regional roadshows were held to inform the NGO sector of the Mental Health Pricing Project. A wide representation of NGOs attended raising a number of issues and questions. Although only 16 responded, the project team will continue to work with the data they have and may repeat the process in the future.
