Headspace is swallowing up hundreds of millions of dollars for youth mental health despite little robust evidence the network is delivering value for money or improved patient outcomes, two leading psychiatrists allege.

Launched in 2006, the network spans Australia with many of its clinical services being delivered face to face or remotely through telepsychiatry, along with online and telephone support.

But Professor Steve Kisely, professor of psychiatry at the University of Queensland, and Associate Professor Jeffrey Looi from the academic unit of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine at ANU, say its results have been ‘disappointing’.

In an MJA perspective, they claim of the $2.3 billion allocated in last year’s federal budget on new mental health expenditure, $766 million was directed to Headspace, as well as related services for older age groups in so-called Head to Health centres.