I worked for the CMHT for 15 years and one of the psych community nurses there set up an early intervention service which worked fantastically for about 2 years before it had to be disbanded as they couldn’t afford to pay the extra staff needed… as you say, on the long term this project would have saved an awful lot of money by reducing waiting lists, hospital admissions and doctors surgery backlogs. Crazy world we live in.A lot of services are in fire fighting mode dealing with immediate emergency cases rather than addressing things early on which would probably save money and improve quality of life in most cases.
It will probably take a number of government terms to change that around. If only the major parties could commit to an effort which addressed this instead of cheap politicking and self interest against the greater good.