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

In line with the programme for Government, I remain firmly committed to developing all aspects of our mental health services, including child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. Additional funding in budget 2017 has resulted in an overall provision of €853 million for all HSE mental health services. The HSE service plan for 2017 prioritises improvement of all aspects of CAMHS, including the development of early intervention counselling and prevention services in primary care to reduce pressures on CAMHS and improvements to specialist CAMHS community-based and acute inpatient care.

CAMH services have benefitted from the significant additional investment in mental health in recent years, although these services face particular challenges in recruiting and retaining staff. The HSE is addressing this on an ongoing basis.

The HSE is also giving priority to reducing CAMHS waiting lists, especially for those waiting over 12 months. This is dependent on the availability of key clinicians within teams, in particular CAMHS consultant psychiatrists. We know that within mental health services, in particular CAMHS services, there is a high turnover of staff. This is something with which we are trying to deal. It can be a very challenging but rewarding environment.

Additional resources have assisted in supporting 67 CAMHS teams and three paediatric liaison teams. I agree with the Deputy that we need to increase the number of people working in these teams. There are also 66 CAMHS inpatient beds in operation nationally. A new standard operating procedure, introduced in June 2015, has also provided greater clarity and consistency on how the service is delivered. Despite increasing demands overall on CAMHS, irrespective of the source of referrals, individual cases professionally assessed as requiring urgent access to services receive priority. Further acute inpatient beds will also come onstream as staffing levels increase.

The HSE service plan for this year provides for better out-of-hours liaison and seven-day response cover in CAMHS, against a background where the population of children is expected to increase by 8,500 in 2016-17. Around 18,500 children will attend the HSE CAMHS service this year, including around 14,000 referrals. Detailed activity data for CAMHS, published in the HSE monthly performance reports, indicate that 68% of children referred are seen within a 12-week period.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

As primary care services are usually the first point of contact for children and adolescents when problems initially present, those with mild to moderate presentations are seen by psychologists in the service, unless there is a significant risk of harm, a rapid deterioration or a crisis which requires a specialist response. In order to develop early intervention services for those under 18 years of age, €5 million has been allocated to include the recruitment of 114 assistant psychologists in primary care. These posts have been sanctioned for recruitment. Despite the challenges outlined, I am satisfied that significant efforts are under way to develop all aspects of CAMHS. I am continuously liaising with the HSE on the implementation of its service plan priorities for this service.

See this speech in context