Ms Anne O'Connor:

I will address the issue of CAMHS in the Cork area. As the Minister mentioned, there is a particular issue around staffing in some CAMHS. The services in Cork and in the CHO 4 area, which covers Cork and Kerry, are working at 50% of the provision envisaged in A Vision for Change. They have some vacancies but the total staffing allocation is an issue for them.

When it comes to CAMHS performance in general, we look at three components. One is the so-called pre-CAMHS, or what exists in an area that could help avoid the need for CAMHS. This is because we see that people end up in CAMHS in the absence of other local solutions. The Minster also mentioned assistant psychologists in that regard. In that area alone, 16 new assistant psychologist and seven qualified psychologist posts have been allocated because there had been a deficit there. We hope that this will make a difference to the numbers going to CAMHS because there is currently quite a high referral rate from that area.

We are also looking at how we can help the services with their medical staffing. There are a number of vacancies. Unfortunately the structure of CAMHS is such that there is a single consultant for a team in an area. There is one team for every 50,000 people and if the consultant is not there, that has an impact on an entire population. We are working with the area on that.

Deputy Kelleher mentioned the issues that were arising and the most recent report showed the area had more than 80 people waiting for more than 12 months. This has already been reduced due to work undertaken to ensure that children who need to be seen are really prioritised and that cancellations are allocated etc. I can reassure the committee that existing issues are being actively addressed. They have, however, very real challenges around staffing. They also have a particular challenge in their inpatient unit where eight beds have been closed. Our hope is that a new doctor early in the July rotation will resolve that for us. We have had additional consultant time but we have not had non-consultant doctor time. We are addressing that in the July changeover.

A number of things are happening in Cork that will hopefully improve matters. There are certainly challenges there, however, and we are working very closely with the division to give them additional resources and support. More importantly, we are working with them to look at other avenues for young people with mental health problems. It is important that we acknowledge that mental health for young people does not begin and end with the CAMH service and that other supports are there before children ever need to go the CAMHS. We are developing this as well through this new allocation. That is the update on CAMHS.