Mr. Mark Smyth:

The justification given to us is that mental health is an illness and only a doctor can verify the presence of an illness. As I mentioned, Sharing the Vision is a very progressive document which has moved on to that and looked at many different contributors to what impacts on mental health. We know from our consultant colleagues that there are not enough consultants. There are very few, especially in child specialties. We have set up a system that is supposed to enable us to access third level. I am a clinical psychologist working with young people for nearly 20 years. I could work, and have worked, with young people for a year or a year and a half who have anxiety or depression, and at the end of that process I am unable to verify the impact that mental health difficulty has had on their access to third level. They must go off, if they can, to find a psychiatrist. I had a family last week who are now going on a nine-month waiting list for one private psychiatrist they have never met and do not know. They will then have to self-fund to verify, when the young person and I already know what that impact is.

It is very undermining for them to have to retell their story. We have very experienced psychologists, OTs, speech and language therapists and people working in mental health settings, such as our colleagues in Jigsaw who, equally, are not able to verify the impact. We have set up a system that, on the face of it, is supposed to be about increasing access but in reality puts up massive barriers against families and young peoples.