Dr. Roisín Plunkett:

I might answer Deputy Buckley's question about the team always needing to be consultant led. It is really important that it would be, in the same way that an oncology service needs an oncologist at its head. That is not to say that there is not an opportunity to develop nursing roles further. Specialist nurses form a very useful part of an overall team. It ties in to what the Chairman was talking about earlier. The development of primary care mental health services would be welcome. It would lead to more access to other helpful supports at primary care level for people with mental health difficulties who have not met the threshold for mental illness. When a person meets the threshold for mental illness it is important that they have access to a specialist psychiatry service in secondary care, which is consultant led and multidisciplinary. It only needs to be for a brief period of care while they are acutely mentally ill and then they can go back to good supportive primary care mental health services in the same way that people with other illnesses go from primary care to secondary care and back. That is the vision we have.