Dr. Brendan Doody:

Again, for example, I can speak about eating disorders. If someone is being admitted to an inpatient unit with an eating disorder, it increases his or her likelihood of needing to be readmitted because, again, the nature of his or her illness is such that he or she required inpatient admission and, therefore, is at a much greater likelihood for readmission. Clearly, our goal related to services where he or she can have intensive intervention is to not allow, for example, the eating disorder, to develop a more chronic nature.

It is important that we have that intensive intervention. For example, for the eating disorder group of patients in Linn Dara, we have a specialist community service so that when a young person is admitted, they are stepped down to a very intensive specialist service. We would say that is going to reduce the likelihood of readmission but it does not mean it will never happen. We will have some young people who, due to the nature of their condition, require periods of inpatient treatment.