Ms Ber Grogan:

I wish to say to Deputy Ward that even though we might disagree on some small things with the Mental Health Commission or others, we all want the same outcomes. It is amazing when we think of this big piece of legislation with 120 heads that there is only a small number of things that we are all looking to be tweaked.

We always learn from Mr. Farrelly and his colleagues. The Deputy would have heard from us before about our My Voice Matters piece. In 2019, it was the largest piece of research done on people using mental health services and their family members, friends and carers. It looked at their experiences with the system.

There were 786 participants in the family, friends, carers and supporters piece. Some 81.8% of those said they had not been made aware of the complaints process. Even though there are complaints processes within the HSE and within services, more than 81% of the family members were not aware of them while the person was in crisis and being treated. They are getting that information. Almost half of them agreed that the hospital expected them to be responsible for the recovery of the person. Significant pressure was put on the family, friends, carers and supporters. We completely agree with Mr. Farrelly's point on advocacy.

There are two reports on service users. We have My Voice Matters for people using the services and a separate one for the family members. Of the people using services, there were 1,188 participants and 41% of them reported a poor experience with the mental health services.

Many positive things are happening such as national clinical programmes. However, in the studies we have done and the engagement we have had with our grassroots forum and people with lived experience, the need for the independent complaints mechanism has been highlighted to us consistently, as has the need for increased independent advocacy services. I have loads of statistics and percentages.

At our conference last week, Mr. Farrelly was one of the speakers at one of the sessions. Of the contributions from the floor, a couple of people spoke about advocacy and complaints mechanisms. These are people who are coming at this from lived experience, whether it is their family members or themselves.