Dr. Brendan Doody:

Yes. Obviously if you look back, in 2010 more young people were being admitted to adult units than to child units. As a percentage of admissions it is now down to 7% of admissions to HSE. There was a total of 361 admissions in 2021 and 27 were admitted to adult units. Of those, 16 subsequently transferred to CAMHS units. If, as Jim has said, we have the national tele-call - if a young person is admitted to an adult unit they are seen and assessed and what we find is on average a young person is three or four days in that adult setting and then either transferred to a CAMHS unit or discharged. Last year, 60% of those admitted to an adult unit were subsequently transferred to a CAMHS unit and again the average age was 17 and a half years. The vast majority of these young people are actually aged 17 years. Although it is 7% of admissions if you look at actual bed days it is much smaller than that. Clearly, one would like to reduce this as much as possible. However, I do not think it is realistic as in a crisis situation admission to an adult unit may be in the young person's best interest but again, if that occurs it should be for the minimum amount of time and the young person should be transferred as soon as possible.

Within our particular primary catchment area we have had very few admissions to adult units in the past two and a half years. However, again the focus should be not only on reducing the number of admissions but also ensuring if an admission occurs the young person is assessed, triaged and transferred if that is appropriate and if they are not, that they are discharged, so it is not that young people are spending extended periods of time in adult units. They are either transferred or discharged within four days.