Living Well, Living Longer helps people living with severe mental illness to improve their physical health and wellbeing. 

Joe Andrade is sitting in a chair in the Marrickville Community Health Centre, lifting a leg up and down as part of an exercise program he's working through with the support of exercise physiologist Peter Woollett.   

"My ankles were sore, my legs hurt, my knees hurt," Joe tells Peter of his physical health before starting the program.   

"Because of you, I felt a lot better because little by little I started to walk a lot more. 

"Now I can walk normally like everybody else."  

Joe is one of many mental health patients who engage with Sydney Local Health District's Living Will, Living Longer program, designed to improve the health and wellbeing of people living with severe mental illness.

People living with a severe mental illness have a reduced life expectancy of 14 to 23 years compared to the general population. 

The life expectancy gap is due in part to low treatment rates for coexisting physical health conditions including cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and cancer, accounting for most premature deaths.   

Living Well, Living Longer aims to guide mental health patients through the four stages of screening, detection, treatment initiation and ongoing management for these coexisting conditions.  

In November, the District celebrated the program’s 10-year anniversary and how it has helped patients across the District improve their physical health, manage coexisting health conditions and ultimately, increase their life expectancy.   

"People get to prove themselves wrong and that they're more capable than they once imagined themselves to be," Peter said.   

Dr Teresa Anderson, the District's Chief Executive, said Living Well, Living Longer was borne out of the recognition that the needs of mental health patients extended beyond what traditional healthcare service could provide.   

"It is a real example of how everyone can come together to address a really serious issue, and unfortunately, we know the statistics," she said.   

"These are serious and significant health inequalities, and they can be compounded by the side effects of the medications we give our patients, the lifestyles, the social disconnect and the stigma that is associated with mental illness, which gets in the way of people accessing the care that they need."  

Catherine Lourey, NSW Mental Health Commissioner, said the program works with people's experiences to improve their health outcomes.   

"It is about how do we bring the voice of lived experience, the people on that journey, so that we are always understanding where we can improve in our clinical work," she said. 

"There is no one answer, it is about how we can work in an integrated way."   

Tricia O'Riordan, Director of Clinical Services and Programs, NSW Health Mental Health Branch, said the past decade was a strong start to supporting people with mental health issues to live healthier, fuller lives.  

"It does always strike me that mental health consumers have a shorter life expectancy, they have more preventable hospitalisations, more vaccine-preventable conditions, higher rates of emergency surgery and lower rates of screening," she said.  

"We need to stay adaptive and forward-looking to address the challenges but also to seize the opportunities in front of us."  

Reflecting on the program's success, Dr Andrew McDonald, Clinical Director of the District's Mental Health Service, said it would pursue further improvement to support more significant health equity.  

"We recognise that despite all of the progress we've made and the really good start, it is a huge mountain for us to climb in dealing with the physical health of our mental health consumers," he said.  

For patients like Joe, participating in Living Well, Living Longer has drastically changed his life, giving him better mobility and health.   

"I'm proud of myself, I feel a lot better by taking the program," he said.