For Dr Kerrie Aust, some of the hardest conversations with patients at risk of suicide come when public and private mental health services have turned them away.

“They might not meet the threshold for admission, or they are too high risk for management by a private psychiatrist who does not have admitting rights to the hospital,” says the GP and AMA ACT president.

“We hear from doctors that it is difficult to continue practising in some of those more complex situations, when you feel you do not have that support as a clinician.” 

Dr Aust says it is often the “missing middle” patients — not acutely unwell but with a range of difficult-to-determine risk factors — who struggle to access care.