Dr. Aileen Murtagh:

I worked in CAMHS for years prior to my current post. Certainly my experience was that CAMHS was very much the default position. I was lucky enough to work in one CAMHS area, which was at one stage,relatively well resourced in terms of other community services. This is in contrast to the UK, where there is a tiered approach and often young people would have been to one, two or sometimes three services before being referred to CAMHS and many intervention assessments would have already been carried out. Let me give an example of what is happening in CAMHS. I worked in another area, where there was no primary care psychology, so that cases which probably would have been much better served by primary care psychology services were referred directly to CAMHS. I never worked in an area where there was a local autism spectrum disorder, ASD, team so it led to a great many referrals for ASD assessments for young people without comorbid mental health difficulties. It is quite stigmatising for young people if they are referred to a service which is envisaged to provide a service for severe mental health difficulties when an ASD assessment is the primary need.

In terms of the lack of integration of services, currently we would work with a number of young people who are involved in a number of different services, it might be CAMHS, Tusla, inpatient services and I think there are more meetings of professionals being held to try to integrate these services. It is like the two Luas lines joining up. It is about integrating service, collaboration and working together in the best interests of young people.