Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He is right that many mental health problems arise at a very young age, sometimes a younger age than people like to speak about or even admit. Inappropriate admissions is a very sensitive issue. The reduction in the number of children admitted to adult psychiatric units continues to be a priority for the HSE's mental health services and it is a priority for me. It is something that has been raised on a weekly and daily basis.

Last week, I met the HSE specifically to review progress on this issue and to see what further improvements can be made in this regard. I will be progressing this with the HSE over the coming months, particularly in the context of opening additional child and adolescent mental health beds and enhancing community-based care for young people across the regions while additional mental health staffing comes onstream. I also intend to improve, where possible, the multidisciplinary approach at local level to ensure that existing best practice is standardised nationally. Bearing this in mind, the Deputy will have to see we have made significant improvements in recent years. In 2008, we had 247 admissions to adult units and this declined to 89. While we saw a small increase last year, we are starting to see it move in the right direction.

If we look at the figures, where a child has been admitted to an adult psychiatric unit or an inpatient unit, the length of stay has been kept to an absolute minimum. The child is generally 17 to 18 years of age and while I am not saying this is okay or appropriate, we need to continue to put a variation of measures in place to see these figures reduce. Our target is 95% and I would like it reach 100%.

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