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Published: 28 October, 2021

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission (the Commission) has today released its independent report into the progress of the  Access and Choice Programme  being developed and implemented under the leadership of the Ministry of Health. The programme, developed in response to

Published: February 2026

. Access and Choice programme overview | April 2025 This page contains all reports on the Access and Choice programme, monitoring progress on improving access and choice for mental health and addiction services in New Zealand. Mental health and addiction specialist service access factsheet | February 2025

Published: 5 June, 2024

and Choice programme in primary care has increased access and expanded options for people with mild to moderate mental health and addiction needs. However, access to specialist services has decreased, with people reporting challenges accessing these services. We look at the access challenges faced

Published: 3 April, 2025

  At the five- year mark, the Access and Choice Programme has proved to be a valuable addition to the mental health, addiction and wellbeing support services available to people throughout the country. Today Te Hiringa Mahara – the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission released a report that

Published: 24 March, 2026

paper. The paper documents the discussion which answered two provocative questions: What does the primary care landscape need to look like? How do we get there? This discussion followed the release in April 2025 of our final monitoring report on the Access and Choice programme. During development of

Published: January 2026

Monitoring of the mental health and addiction system is reported on in a number of reports.  Notable reports Mental health and addiction system performance monitoring report | 2025 downloads  (June 2025) Urupare Mōrearea: crisis response services monitoring report (November 2025) Access

Published: 4 July, 2024

The announcement of targets to address wait times and workforce pressures across the mental health and addiction system has been welcomed by Te Hiringa Mahara – Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. “Access to appropriate services when and where they are needed is very important to people seeking

Published: 31 May, 2023

More people are accessing new services through the Access and Choice programme, however, there has been a decrease in people accessing specialist mental health and addiction services and other primary mental health services, and little or no change on other measures of service quality. This is

Published: January 2026

options for non-Māori. We are already seeing changes, but we need to see more Currently, Access and Choice allocates 20% of ringfenced funding for Kaupapa Māori services, which is heading in the right direction. Increases in future years for Kaupapa Māori services will contribute significantly towards

Published: 4 September, 2023

Tuarua: 2023 Youth services focus report (May 2023) Ka whakahuatau te rangatahi mō te Toiora / Youth wellbeing insights report (May 2023) Access and Choice Programme: Improvising access and choice for youth report (2022)