Victoria’s mental health complaints body is fighting an order by the state’s information watchdog to release secret recommendations about improving mental health services.
The state’s Mental Health Complaints Commissioner (MHCC) has argued releasing the recommendations could indirectly identify consumers.
But mental health advocates and consumers say the recommendations can help improve service’s care and shine a light on human rights breaches that a landmark royal commission found were systemic in the sector.
Nicole Lee, who submitted a complaint to the MHCC in 2021 over her treatment in a public mental health facility, said releasing the recommendations would benefit consumers.
“Having them released gives us a sense of transparency and is a way of rebuilding trust in a service that has to date not worked for us,” she said.
“The fact they’re fighting to not release it makes us more concerned about what those recommendations actually are and will they actually solve the problem. It’s concerning.”
Last year, Simon Katterl, a human rights and mental health advocate, applied to the MHCC under freedom of information laws seeking the recommendations made to mental health services between 2015 and 2020.
The MHCC would not release those recommendations due to privacy provisions in the state’s mental health and freedom of information legislation, in a decision rejected by the Office of Victorian Information Commissioner (Ovic) in May.
The MHCC had argued the information could indirectly identify a consumer, including through the circumstances of their complaint, and that the disclosure could prevent the commissioner from resolving complaints in a timely manner. It also said health agencies provide information to the commissioner in confidence.
But the Ovic said the documents should be partially released under FoI laws.
Joanne Kummrow, the public access deputy commissioner at Ovic, found “public interest weighs in favour of disclosure as it demonstrates how the agency is carrying out its functions”.
The MHCC is appealing against the decision, with the matter to come before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Vcat) next month..
Katterl said the recommendations would help the public understand where further improvements were needed in the mental health sector, and where work was already under way.
“This information is essential to enhance human rights in the mental health system, eliminate seclusion and restraint, and reduce compulsory treatment,” he said.
The opposition’s mental health spokesperson, Emma Kealy, said the MHCC’s decision did not align with the recommendations of a Victorian royal commission into the sector, made in 2021, to increase transparency.
“Mental health workers are doing their best to deliver the care that Victorians need and deserve, but Labor is failing these workers by ignoring the royal commission’s priority recommendations around workforce and increased transparency around Victoria’s mental health crisis,” she said.
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The royal commission recommended that a new mental health and wellbeing commission (MHWC) be established. That body, which will absorb the MHCC, is due to begin work in earnest on 1 September.
The inquiry recommended that the body’s handling of complaints “meet[s] the needs of consumers, families, carers and supporters”. It said it should record, report and publish service-level complaints and “other relevant data and information.”
The Victorian Greens’ mental health spokesperson, Dr Tim Read, said disclosing issues identified in the mental health sector demonstrated the government’s commitment to improvement.
“Trying to suppress this stuff doesn’t fill anyone with confidence that effort is being made to fix the problem,” he said.
Read said confidentiality was vital but it should be possible to report recommendations in a way that does not breach privacy.
“If they say it can’t be done, then they’re not trying hard enough.”
The MHWC’s chair, Treasure Jennings, said transparency is a core value.
“We considered the need for transparency against the need to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of the complaint-handling process and released the majority of the data requested under this application with some redactions,” she said.
“When consumers and carers make a confidential complaint to us, often about very sensitive matters, they have an expectation to privacy which we have a duty to protect.”
Jennings said even with identifying details removed, an individual may be able to recognise their own case or be identified by others which could have “unintended consequences”.
