Ms Marie Butler:

Many healthcare assistants sit with people who need one-to-one care, whereas such people should be in a properly provided mental health facility where they can be properly cared for. Community healthcare assistants are under-utilised. There are community healthcare assistants in mental health services and intellectual disability services. They are all over the place but nobody knows what they do. We should consider that in tandem with other issues such as diagnostics and assessments, given that, naturally, people want to get well. The patient experience could be greatly enhanced if the support grade was given a bit more recognition. We strongly recommend that the recently published healthcare assistant report be given full support by the Department of Health and the HSE-----