The Government is using mental health patients as "gambling chips" by implementing social bonds, says one social services researcher.
Steve Taylor, a counsellor and social service outcomes researcher said the answer to improving mental health services was determining which agencies were most successful with clients, and funnelling money to those agencies, and away from agencies who are not successful with clients.
"Such a method is still performance-orientated, but with the absence of mental health clients being used as gambling chips by the state," said Mr Taylor.
"In any social service, the client's assessment of their own improvement is the most significant indicator of service success, rather than how many clients simply present for service," he said.
"The Government wouldn't have to spend any extra money -they would simply need to mandate that such client outcome measures were used in the provision of service as a part of their existing funding contracts with service providers".
