Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 14 February 2023

Joint Committee On Health

Mental Health Commission Interim Report on CAMHS: HSE

Mr. Damien McCallion:

One of the strong recommendations of the commission related to the model. However, a broad range of areas we need to tackle and address are outlined in the report. I would not say clinical oversight and governance are the only issues. A broad range of issues that will have to be addressed to improve the service were identified in the report. It also recognised that the service is working very well in certain services in some parts of the country. We talked at the start of the meeting about the number of young children availing of the service. Others may wish to comment, but the commission identified a broad range of issues and I do not think we should isolate the oversight and governance issues. There is a wider range of things that we need to tackle and that is why that national improvement programme, building and pulling all the threads of the reviews together, is important. It is important to get as much cohesion and consistency in the service as possible throughout the country. To be frank, because there are services throughout the country, comprising 73 teams, some variation is inevitable. The challenge for us in the system is to try to make it as consistent as possible for people, while accepting that a range of factors impact the service in urban and rural areas.

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