Integrating physical and mental health care by connecting services and addressing health system gaps, must be a priority in tackling suicide.

The Australian Physiotherapy Association (APA) submission to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veterans Suicide calls on governments to prioritise integrated approaches, ensuring mental and physical health is interconnected in service design.

The article in today’s Nine/Fairfax paper “Government takes aim at allied health in aged care” highlights the alarming approach the Morrison government is taking to reforming the aged care sector which will ultimately lead to poorer quality of care for our most vulnerable people.

Concussion is mentioned in daily news cycles, athletes are being medically retired on the basis of repeated concussions and community sport has adopted strict return-to-play protocols.

So why all the fanfare now about a condition that has been around for as long as blokes have had testosterone and the desire to strike each other’s heads? The simple answer is: medicine.

The Australian Physiotherapy Association (APA) supports calls by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) for all levels of Government to develop a national plan addressing the growing and increasingly critical backlog of elective surgeries.

The AMA and RACS highlighted new Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) data, showing Australians are now waiting even longer for essential surgery.