James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The 2006 report of the expert group on mental health policy on the implementation of A Vision for Change is a priority for the Government. In this regard, budget 2012 and budget 2013 provided an additional €35 million each year for the continued development of our mental health services. The Health Service Executive, HSE, national service plan 2013 commits to a number of objectives including the further development of forensics and community mental health teams for adults, children, older persons and mental health intellectual disability and to the recruitment of 477 additional staff to implement these measures.

The additional funding provided in 2012 and 2013 is being used primarily to further strengthen community mental health teams by ensuring, at a minimum, that at least one of each mental health professional discipline is represented on every team. The professional composition of these teams will be consistent with the posts described in A Vision for Change such as consultant psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, clinical psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and social care workers.

To ensure the additional resources will be used to best effect, discussions are ongoing in the HSE, and in consultation with the Department of Health, to finalise the allocation of these resources. It has been agreed the allocation of staff will be subject to detailed business cases from the HSE regions for each objective. The following conditions should be met - all posts will be allocated to the community mental health teams for each objective and for no other purpose; all teams must discharge the team co-ordinator role to ensure effective working as a multidisciplinary team; all teams must implement the clinical programmes, as agreed; all teams must complete and return required key performance indicators, both existing and new; all postholders will work as part of a mental health services community mental health multidisciplinary team.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

Each HSE region is being asked to submit a business case against each of the identified objectives detailing how the funding is to be spent and the type and number of WTE to be recruited. It is expected that this process will be concluded by end March 2013. Until that process is completed, I am not in a position to identify the type of each post and where it is to be allocated. I am assured that the matter is being given priority within the HSE.

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