Dr. Amanda Burke:

On the question about disjointed pathways, we acknowledge there have been difficulties accessing CAMHS. This year, we are working on a single point of access which will mean any young person with a mental health difficulty will be referred through a single referral point. Their referral will be triaged by a team of clinicians which will not just include CAMHS, disability and primary care but also our partner agencies like Jigsaw, Pieta House and, we hope, Tusla. We will pilot this so that the young person, their family and the referral agent do not need to worry about where they send this referral. They send it to one place and then it is up to the clinicians to decide which is the most appropriate. When the referral comes in, it will be date-stamped. For example, if it was sent to CAMHS, seen by CAMHS and CAMHS said it did not meet its criteria, the young person would not be penalised. They would be redirected to the most appropriate service. The waiting time will not be any more. We hope that communication will be done in a network area. We will develop relationships with our partner agencies so it will be more efficient. Young people will not be referred to lots of different agencies or wait for so long. There will also be inter-service collaboration. I listened earlier and it was said that people are not talking to each other. If there are weekly team meetings in which you discuss the matter, that will help the whole process. We are quite excited about that. It will take a bit of time. We will pilot it first and then mainstream it.