Seeing the full picture - why mental health data matters

Seeing the full picture – why mental health data matters

Good data helps to tell us where change is needed.

Last week, the National Mental Health Commission released its 2025 National Report Card, providing an important snapshot of mental health and wellbeing in Australia. 

The Report Card brings together the latest evidence on mental health experiences and outcomes, the factors that affect mental health, and the services that support people experiencing mental health challenges.

Key findings include:

• Experiences of psychological distress remain common, with almost one in four Australians aged 15 and over experiencing high or very high levels of distress. 
• People living with mental health conditions report lower life satisfaction, are almost twice as likely to experience discrimination, and continue to face barriers to getting the support they need.
• Cost remains a persistent barrier to accessing support.
• The service system is doing more, but uneven access, system fragmentation, workforce pressures and data gaps limit impact and opportunities for improvement. 

While these findings highlight the challenges many people are facing, they also reinforce the importance of having a complete picture of the mental health system. Understanding who is accessing support, who is delivering it, and where gaps remain is essential to improving outcomes. So too, is capturing the insights from people with lived experience of mental health challenges and their family, carers and kin. 

Non-government organisations play a vital role in Australia's mental health system, delivering services for people, families and communities. 

Recent data shows governments invest approximately $2.47 billion annually1 on mental health services delivered by non-government organisations (NGOs), and a further $6.07 billion in supports for people with psychosocial disability through the NDIS.2  

Yet despite this, the work of NGO mental health services remains largely invisible in our national data. 
 
That is why Mental Health Australia was pleased to work with the National Mental Health Commission in 2025-26 to explore opportunities to improve the representation of NGO services in the National Report Card. I thank our members and the broader sector for contributing their expertise and insights to this work. 

I was really encouraged to see the Commission act on our recommendations to strengthen the visibility of NGO services in the short term, while supporting ongoing work with governments, the sector and people with lived experience and their family, carers and kin to improve national data collection over time.

Better data leads to better decisions – and better services. Strengthening data on NGO service delivery will help ensure decision-makers have a more complete view of Australia's mental health landscape, supporting more informed policy and funding decisions, service development and evaluation, and greater accountability and transparency across the mental health system. 

To learn more, I encourage you to read Mental Health Australia's Increasing NGO Data in the National Report Card report.

You can also join Mental Health Australia and the National Mental Health Commission on 17 September, where we'll discuss the findings of the National Report Card and what they mean for the future of mental health reform in Australia. Register here.

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1 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2026), Expenditure on mental health-related services. 

2 National Disability Insurance Agency (2025), Psychosocial disability data to 31 December 2025, see worksheet titled ‘Table_13’