Ms Anne O'Connor:

In terms of mental health, we have a very significant focus on it and the priority for us was to secure considerable investment in order to be able to implement the new policy, Sharing the Vision. It is a refresh of A Vision for Change. We have now been allocated significant funding for the full year. It is more important for us to have secured permanent funding to deliver and develop teams.

From our perspective, the priority is, of course, to be able to provide early access to people in terms of mental health. We have worked throughout Covid to develop information and supports to people at the lowest level of complexity. We often focus on our very specialist mental health services for people who attend our specialist teams. However, we know there has been a gap at primary care level in terms of supporting the mental health needs of the population. We have developed a psychosocial framework that we hope to launch over the coming week or two in terms of supporting the general population, supporting people who attend services and, critically, supporting our staff. This looks at having an integrated response at a lower level, so in terms of primary care it is working with primary care psychology and with other disciplines and then feeding into the specialist services and having a clear pathway, as required. For us, this is going to be done on a population basis but it is a key priority for us.

We are seeing trends in terms of people whose conditions have deteriorated more or who are experiencing higher levels of anxiety than heretofore, so we are acutely aware of the need to progress that public-facing response. I think we have been doing it in a range of areas, and yourmentalhealth.iehas been updated on an ongoing basis throughout Covid. Critically, the support and the access to services is what we are focused on as we head through winter and into 2021.

In terms of the homeless, we are working with the providers. We have specific mental health services for homeless people and we are working with providers in terms of enhancing those services to those populations. We have been doing it through Covid and we will continue to do it.