Professor Jim Lucey:

The Deputy has made a very good point. If we are looking for an indicator of a comprehensive, rights-based, respectful and effective service, one of the ways to determine this is to see if there is a complaints process in place that matches these objectives. Where services do not have this in place, as an earlier speaker said, we generally find these minimums are not there. One of the illustrations for our key point, which is that community services, CAMHS services and mental health services in the community need to be regulated, concerns the approved centres that we do regulate.

The presence of a complaints process is one of the mandatory regulations. We are able to measure that, find a service in breach if it does not have one, and measure it against the standard. All the boats rise because we are then able to work with the service to make sure it puts in a proper complaints process. We cannot do that once a person is in the community.

The Deputy mentioned another issue, which is about the follow-up. With regard to an inpatient service, the technical term we use is the approved centres. There is a code of practice we regulate which requires services to manifest a proper practice around admissions, discharges or transfers. In other words, within a degree of the approved centre, there is a requirement to demonstrate something to do with continuity, but there is nothing like that in the community and we do not have the power to regulate to such a standard.

These are not new ideas. As Dr. Hillery has said, it is not a new service, new data or even new ideas we need. We need the regulation of what we know, which is an holistic service. Several recommendations of my predecessor, Dr. Finnerty, really are a comprehensive template for this. We recommend that committee members and their colleagues implement the recommendations. The key one is that a regulation would actually go forward. We would be thrilled if the committee made that recommendation.