Dr. Aideen Brides:

The Deputy asked about how we could actually do this and about pilots. I would suggest looking at something like the Australian model for funding mental health. First, it has about twice the budget dedicated to mental health than Ireland. Second, it has great resources and funding at primary care level. GPs are funded to spend 20 or 30 minutes with a patient and they know they can resource their practices with extra nursing etc. to take that time out with the patient. GPs can allocate up to ten sessions of psychotherapy, psychology or talking services per year for an individual patient. I spoke to a colleague this week who has worked as a GP in Australia. She said that she loved working as a GP from a mental health perspective when she was there. She prescribed medication in about 30% to 40% of patients because she knew she had other options to give them, whereas since returning to Ireland she said that she is prescribing in almost 100% of cases because she has no other option. The number of patients she is now referring to secondary care services has quadrupled because, again, there is no other option.

Taken as a whole, there are many pilot studies around the world. We do not need to reinvent the wheel here. That would feed into the secondary care services because it would take the pressure off the consultants. They would not have to look at endless waiting lists. They know that perhaps three quarters of that is not in their remit. It would allow us to keep secondary care for specialist psychiatry services that are badly needed.