New Zealand's mental health, addiction workforce remains under 'significant strain'
New Zealand's Health Ministry has unveiled new measures to expand the country's mental health workforce to ease the strain on the sector amid persistent psychological challenges faced by Kiwis.
The ministry released this week a refreshed version of its Mental Health and Addiction Workforce Plan 2024-2027, which underscored the ongoing pressures faced by its mental health workforce.
"Our mental health and addiction workforce remains under significant strain, with pressures across workforces and services," said the Health Ministry.
"At the same time, our wider health workforce doesn't always have the support it needs to manage increasingly complex mental health and addiction issues."
Additional burdens on the workforce include the growing prison population and the complexity of their needs, as well as the significant use of methamphetamine in New Zealand.
To address these challenges, the government outlined six new actions that include:
- Developing workforces to respond to methamphetamine-related harm
- Growing and developing the forensic workforce
- Improving access to training opportunities for enrolled nurses working in mental health and addictions services
- Better understanding the growing peer workforce
- Rolling out a national training package for nurses and allied professionals to be appointed responsible clinicians under the Mental Health Act
- Reviewing growth in psychology hubs to support more psychology training
"The updated plan continues the government's focus on faster access to support, more frontline workers, and a stronger crisis response," said Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey in a statement.
"When someone takes the brave step of reaching out for help, workforce should never be a barrier. Whether it's you, your child, a friend, or a family member, this Government is committed to making sure support is there."
Mental health workforce improvement
The new measures come following significant goals achieved by the government in expanding the mental health workforce in the past year, according to the report. They include:
- 349 extra frontline mental health and addiction workers beginning training in clinical professions in semester one alone
- New peer support roles expanding into eating disorder services, emergency departments, and Crisis Recovery Cafes
- Approval of a new psychology assistant role, with training to begin in 2026
- Universities have opened more clinical places on mental health training programmes
"Budget 2025 provided increased funding for psychology internships and stage one psychiatry registrars, and we're already seeing the impact. We set a goal of 60 new clinical psychology interns in 2025, we have surpassed that with 74 now employed, delivering on our commitment to double the number of clinical internship places," Doocey added.
"We have also made it a priority to grow the number of stage one psychiatrist registrar training positions available each year, it has gone from 33 in 2024 to 54 in 2026."
Mental health challenges continue to plague New Zealanders, including employees in workplaces.
Data from the 2025 TELUS Health Barometer revealed that 63% of employees in New Zealand feel somewhat or extremely burnt out.
More than a third of workers (37%) also remain at high mental health risk, with employees facing issues such as stress (41%), anxiety (37%), and isolation (34%).
