NSW state insurer icare is funding three psychiatry fellowships for advanced trainees to study brain injury.

It has partnered with the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry and Northern Sydney Local Health District to establish the fellowships, at a cost of $1.5 million.

There hasn’t been any specialist fellowship training for psychiatrists in the area of brain injury until now. Seventy per cent of icare’s Lifetime Care participants have a brain injury and 50% of those have a mental health condition.

“We want to be able to address complex behavioural and mental health needs and optimise the lives of participants with brain injury. The aim is that we will be able to support them as they go through their rehabilitation and reintegration into the community,” says icare General Manager Care Innovation and Excellence, Suzanne Lulham.

“There are only a very small number of psychiatrists in NSW who specialise in this clinical area so we’re hoping to change that,” she adds.