Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 January 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Future of Mental Health Care

Community Health Care Organisations: Discussion (Resumed)

1:30 pm

Ms Angela Walsh:

The answer is that it is an average of 16 whole-time equivalents per 50,000 of population. As Ms Walshe outlined, we are trying to reconfigure our teams to the health and social networks, which will align them to primary care, so we have some legacy teams where we had full staffing and we are dividing the population, so that piece is what is causing the irregularities when one looks down at the percentages as per A Vision for Change. That will be a fluid process because as Ms Walshe also said, our population increased in 2016. We think we have the population right and then it increases so we will need more staff. Sometimes that can reflect in us looking like we have fewer staff than are required.