Mr. Michael Ryan:

Good morning everybody. I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to the subcommittee on mental health. As outlined in the introduction, I am head of the office of mental health engagement and recovery in the HSE. I will give a brief outline of the work of mental health engagement and recovery because it will help inform the discussion on the Mental Health Act and why it needs to facilitate the recovery approach. The office of mental health engagement and recovery was established in 2018. It aligned the previous function of advancing recovery in Ireland and the office of the mental health engagement into one function. The role of engagement and recovery is to ensure that the experience of service users, family members, carers and their supporters inform the design, delivery and evaluation of our mental services through co-production processes and to ensure that the personal lived and recovery experience of service users, family members and carers is utilised as a service improvement and therapeutic resource within our services. The work of mental health engagement and recovery is central to achieving the person-centred and recovery-oriented service as set out national policy Sharing the Vision.

Currently, in engagement and recovery, we have area leads for engagement in all community healthcare organisation areas and these facilitate 35 local engagement forums of local service users, family members and carers. Additionally, we are continuing to develop a lived experience cohort to our workforce through the introduction of peer support working on to our multidisciplinary teams and through our recovery education and recovery college structures in partnership with our NGO colleagues, Mental Health Ireland. Through this we empower service users, family members, carers, staff and other stakeholders to an enhanced knowledge of recovery and their role in achieving recovery for themselves or facilitating others to do so.In 2022 we expect to increase our number of experts by experience working directly in the HSE to around 130.Engagement and recovery also oversees the individual placement and support, IPS, programme which supports people with long-term and enduring mental health challenges find meaningful work. As of March 2021, more than 100 people are registered the IPS programme, with 441 people having secured meaningful employment since the start of the programme.

In response to the Department of Health's request for submissions to the drafting of the new Mental Health Act, we partnered with our Mental Health Reform colleagues, and I am delighted they are with us today, to hold a consultation process with service users, family members and carers on their views on the draft heads of Bill for the new Mental Health Act. Some 135 people registered for our consultation process which took place over two days.

Mental health engagement and recovery recognises and very much welcomes that the current Mental Health Act draft heads of Bill is more person-centred, promotes autonomy and shared responsibility and has more recovery-focused language but we think there are still opportunities to strengthen this further. In this regard and based on our consultation feedback, we believe the Act should be underpinned by the core values and principles that reflect a recovery-oriented and person-centred service. These principles include recovery, autonomy, accessible language, partnership, co-production, empowerment, transparency, and quality and evidence-based and evidence-led interventions.

We received a substantial amount of feedback through that consultation process, which is available for review and which we will use to inform our planning and service improvement processes in the HSE. The overarching themes of the consultation feedback can be broken down into a number of areas, namely, the need for a human rights approach; the autonomy of people in relation to their own care, treatment and recovery; the importance of co-production and shared decision making; a range of service provision that meets the diverse needs, preferences and choices of people on their recovery journeys; the vital that role family members, carers and supporters can play in facilitating recovery; and an effective system on how to complain to an independent body for mental health.

We have fed back direct commentary to the Department on 12 heads of the Bill, which are listed in my presentation. As the members have a copy of it, I will not name them all individually. This feedback relates to suggested change of language, omission or addition of wording. We also make recommendations on additional themes we believe should be covered in the Act. They include the rights of families, carers, supporters or a nominated person and the recognition of that expertise in the care and recovery processes of individuals; an evaluation by a second consultant psychiatrist; and advanced healthcare directives and complaints procedures.

I acknowledge the contribution of the following in this consultation and feedback process: the national mental health engagement and recovery team, the area leads for mental health engagement, the local mental health engagement forums, and other individual service users, family members and supports. I also thank this subcommittee for the opportunity to present the perspective of service users, family members and carers today and while the subcommittee will engage with many stakeholders in informing the content of the Mental Health Act, the views of service users, family members and carers must be one most important areas for its consideration. I thank the members for their attention.