10. Question No. 10—HealthDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 10—Health10. Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula) to the Minister of Health: What recent milestones have been passed in regards to the mental health workforce?Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): The Budget 2019 mental wellbeing package provided funding to develop the mental health and addiction workforce. This investment has supported a range of new training programmes and placements both to grow and to upskill existing workforces and to develop new workforces. For example I'm happy to report that 46 additional bursaries for Māori students were offered in 2021 and 96 percent of these places have been filled. This is on top of the 80 bursaries that were already filled in 2021. The bursaries are provided through the Te Rau Puawai programme to encourage Māori into mental health - related degree programmes at Massey University which would increase kaimahi Māori in the mental health workforce. I'm also happy to report that we're on track to provide 30 scholarships for Pacific students—77 percent of these scholarships have already been awarded. These scholarships contribute to tuition fees for students who are undertaking a course in full-time or part-time medical and mental health or disability - related studies.Dr Tracey McLellan: What other milestones have been passed to upskill our current health workforce?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Growing our mental health workforce is one of the top priorities of the mental health wellbeing package. I can also report that 71 additional places were made available in 2021 for mental health practitioners to upskill with post-graduate training and cognitive behavioural therapy; infant child and youth treatment; and co-existing mental health and substance use. Of these additional places 97 percent have been filled. This is a good first step towards addressing our mental health workforce shortages.Dr Tracey McLellan: What is being done to increase mental health and addiction literacy training among the wider health workforce?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The Ministry of Health funded 80 additional mental health what they call 101 workshops in 2020 and 2021 all of which were filled with close to 2750 people attending. These workshops—this 101 programme—includes topics of stress and wellbeing mental health challenges suicide trauma supportive language and perspective building a connection sharing your concerns when to get help and local support. This allows more health professionals across New Zealand to see the signs of mental distress early and to respond accordingly.Matt Doocey: Why has there been close to a 40 percent increase in the number of mental health workers who have quit the workforce from 634 in the last year of the National Government to 875 last year under his Labour Government?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I can't explain that except we know that because of the successive under-investment by the previous Government specifically in the mental health sector this is a workforce that is under huge pressure. And this was a Government that actually took the courage to step up and admit there is a crisis in mental health and put $1.9 billion into fixing it.