Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 9 May 2023

Joint Committee On Health

Life Cycle Approach to Mental Health: Discussion (Resumed)

Dr. Joseph Duffy:

As there is no one dataset, we are not making the best use of the data. Accountability starts with thinking about the best care needed for the young person at the centre. Rather than somebody saying it is above their pay grade or it is not part of the service they provide, what we model within Jigsaw is that when somebody - a parent, a teacher or anybody else - calls us, it is great if we can bring the young person into our service; but if not, we will have a clinician call them back. Mr. Boksberger might want to comment on this. Many parents are relieved to have a conversation on the phone for 20 minutes or more. We are probably saying to them that Jigsaw is not for them but another service might be for them. Our sense of accountability means that somebody is just not left hanging and that they know where to go. There is a sense of how we manage that in a more central way. That comes from some of the work of Sharing the Vision. We think about how in order to integrate, there must be a central repository, particularly for senior clinicians who will be at the end of a phone line to be able to respond to a parent and maybe take some of the heat from a conversation.

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