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Mental health services activity monitoring

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Key points

Over 2.9 million mental health services on the Medicare Benefits Schedule

were processed nationally in the December quarter 2025 (Q4).

Almost 12.9 million mental health prescriptions

listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme were dispensed in the December quarter 2025 (Q4).

Almost 260,000 phone calls were made to Lifeline

during the December quarter 2025 (Q4), 5% lower than the same quarter in 2024 and 3% lower than the same quarter in 2023.

The mental health services activity data reporting provides early insights into how the Australian mental health system is providing services and responding to unplanned changes in population needs and events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters. It can also be used to monitor the impact of system administration and policy changes. Information from different sectors of the health system are analysed to present a picture of activity, including comparisons to recent historical data. Information presented in this report is at both national and state and territory levels for the December quarter 2025 (Q4) using two main types of data:

  • Mental health crisis support including Lifeline, Kids Helpline, Beyond Blue, 13YARN data.
  • Online mental health resources and support including ReachOut and Medicare Mental Health data.
  • Mental health services and prescriptions including both Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)/Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (RPBS) data. In this report PBS and RPBS will be reported in aggregate as ‘PBS’.

For further information on interpreting the data in this report please refer to the data source section.

The AIHW uses ‘First Nations people’ to refer to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples in this report.

Key events

This timeline covers key events over the last 4 years that have impacted mental-health related service activity. While it is not always possible to separate the individual effects of events that overlap each other or impact smaller regions and populations, several of these highlighted events can be seen directly in the data.

Figure 1: Key events over the last 4 years impacting mental health service activity

The key events include:

  • Additional 10 mental health sessions cease (January 2023)
  • Addition of MBS items under Better Access Initiative (March 2023)
  • 60-day prescriptions of PBS medicines (September 2023)
  • First Nations Voice to Parliament Referendum (October 2023)
  • Changes to psychiatry (March 2024)
  • Interest rates begin to drop (February 2025)
  • Australian Federal Election (May 2025)
  • NSW public sector psychiatrists receive temporary pay increase (October 2025)
  • Removal of mental health treatment plan and consultation items from the MBS (November 2025)
  • Social Media Minimum Age (December 2025)
  • Bondi Beach Shooting (December 2025).
The key events include:Additional 10 mental health sessions cease (January 2023)Addition of MBS items under Better Access Initiative (March 2023)60-day prescriptions of PBS medicines (September 2023)First Nations Voice to Parliament Referendum (October 2023)Changes to psychiatry (March 2024)Interest rates begin to drop (February 2025)Australian Federal Election (May 2025)NSW public sector psychiatrists receive temporary pay increase (October 2025)Removal of mental health treatment plan and consultation items from the MBS (November 2025)Social Media Minimum Age (December 2025)Bondi Beach Shooting (December 2025).

Where can I find more information?

Further information and analysis are also available for the following topic areas:

This section replaces the Mental health impact of COVID-19 section, the previous section is still available in archived content.

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