Of course, we know that older people experience mental health issues - certainly depression and anxiety - but very often we tend to think that's just a "normal" part of ageing. It's not. And it is dangerous for us to think so.

Older people deserve all the supports that we provide to other people in other age groups to manage mental health issues. But they don't get them.

That was a big overriding issue that emerged from a summit that Mental Health Victoria hosted late last month in Melbourne, on mental health and ageing.

It heard some alarming statistics. For example, if you're over 75 years in Australia, you're the most likely age group by far to be prescribed psychotropic medication (used to treat psychosis) but the least likely (along with primary school children) to receive a service from a mental health professional.

That's largely, we know, because of high levels of what we call "chemical restraint" in residential aged care, the use of anti-psychotic medications to manage behavioural issues, and that older people, in aged care or out in the community, are far less likely to be referred to a mental health treatment plan.

Those lower rates of referral for therapy are in part because of stigma - that sense that depression is "normal" for older people or that it's too late to be treated - but it's also because mental health care funding for aged care is, through a complex mix of policy and practice, less than it is for other age groups.

Another shocking statistic emerged at the summit that I know will concern many readers. That is that men aged 85 and older have the highest age-specific rate of suicide in Australia. Yet can you remember when you heard this discussed widely, in the media, by politicians, by policy makers?

A third insight that concerned me came from Gerard Mansour, Victoria's first commissioner for senior Victorians, who was also appointed our ambassador for elder abuse prevention in the wake of the Royal Commission into Family Violence. In 2016, he did a comprehensive report on chronic isolation and loneliness which he said was experienced by one in 10 older people.

He said there was now evidence emerging from the US that it not only reduces the quality of one's life, as we would expect, but it actually shortens it.

As he has written since, isolation and loneliness are major public health issues facing older people, with just some of the associated risks including increased rates of cognitive decline, mental health and well-being issues and increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

He writes: "While isolation and loneliness are serious issues for older people in residential aged care, they have the potential to be an even more serious issue for people living in the community who may not have any daily interactions at all, depending on their mobility, health and living situation."

We learnt at the summit there are many such people, including, as the Council on the Ageing reported, that one in five older Australians don't have any money left over from paying their essential bills for leisure or social activities.

It's no wonder that we are now hearing from mental health experts about an "epidemic of loneliness" in our midst, and that the United Kingdom has appointed its first minister for loneliness. We staged the Mental Health and Ageing summit because of these issues, and also because the planets are aligned right now for some solutions, with two relevant Royal Commissions under way, one nationally into Aged Care Quality and Safety as well as the state-level investigation into Victoria's mental health system.

We expect that their work and recommendations will dovetail and that we will see a major focus on the mental health needs of older Australians, in and out of residential aged care.

But we want to make sure, so we are using much of the information we have gathered at the summit to inform separate submissions to those Royal Commissions.

We need to do all we can to ensure that depression and anxiety is absolutely not normal for older people in our community.

Angus Clelland is chief executive of Mental Health Victoria