I’ve reported UWA’s Psychology Services cancellations to the Mental Health Commission
Hi all,
I’ve reported the recent cancellation / suspension of UWA Psychology Services appointments to the Mental Health Commission WA.
To be clear, this is not a criticism of the individual psychologists. In my experience, the psychologists themselves have maintained a fantastic standard of care and support.
My concern is with the administration of the service at a university level. Since Psychology and Student Wellbeing have merged under he “whole of university” wellbeing framework, I have noticed a large decrease in quality. Over the last few years Student Life has, per my understanding had systemic cuts to staff and resources and unfortunately I am quite cynical that these changes are in students best interests.
Since that merger, I have been very disappointed by how the service appears to be managed. For example, telehealth appointments used to be available. Gone. This has made it so much harder to access psychological appointments for students like myself who have family, work obligations, or are particularly unwell, anxious, temporarily remote, or otherwise unable to easily attend in person.
Now, on Friday, per my understanding every single appointment has apparently been cancelled because of an internal audit / technical issue. The next available appointment for anyone is multiple weeks away. In my view, that should not happen with psychological services. These are not ordinary admin appointments. Vulnerable students may rely on them as a key support. This seems to me as though a university administrator made a decision without any sort of clinical considerations. I may be incorrect and perhaps the actual psychology team managers made this decision. In my view, based on my excellent experiences with the psychological team themselves, I do not think this is the case.
General wellbeing consultants or non-clinical supports may be well-intentioned, but they are not a substitute for access to an AHPRA-registered psychologist. I am also preparing a report to the Commonwealth University Ombudsman in this regard. This has the potential to genuinely lead to a student's mental health crisis.
The basis of my concern is that, since the merger, clinical psychological support appears to have become more vulnerable to ordinary administrative disruption. I do not believe this kind of cancellation would have happened when Psychology Services operated more clearly as its own clinical service. That's my thoughts on it.
I would be interested to hear whether others have experienced similar issues since the merger, such as cancelled appointments, no telehealth, delays, or being redirected to wellbeing rather than psychology.
For anyone else affected, the Mental Health Commission contact page is here: