One-third of mentally ill patients seeking help at emergency rooms across Australia are forced to wait unreasonably long periods to receive the care they need, according to a new Productivity Commission report.

The report, released on Wednesday, showed timely access to mental healthcare in emergency rooms was at just 68 per cent nationally in 2016-17, with “timely” meaning seen within 10 minutes for patients in an emergency, 30 minutes for “urgent” cases, one hour for “semi-urgent” and two hours for “non-urgent”.