Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Some 8,415 people are awaiting psychology appointments nationally, of which 2,584 are waiting for over a year. Approximately 80% of those waiting are in the five to 17 year age group.

The HSE has a service improvement initiative under way for psychology services. This includes the recruitment of people to fill an additional 22 psychologist posts and 114 assistant psychology posts. The posts were advertised recently. A cross-divisional working group, including the mental health division, is working to ensure standardised delivery of service, setting out and communicating the arrangements for care pathways and reporting of metrics. Each community health care organisation, CHO, has been requested to submit a short-term action plan to address waiting lists in priority areas as part of the service improvement initiative.

Other developments in this area include: the counselling in primary care service for adults over 18 years of age who are medical cardholders; a greater awareness of fostering mental health promotion in society through campaigns like the Let's Talk and The Little Things Campaign; implementing the suicide prevention strategy, Connecting for Life; the ongoing reduction of child and adolescent mental health services waiting lists for those waiting over 12 months; the development of counselling services across both primary and secondary care, including early intervention at primary-care level; and the opening of new Jigsaw youth mental health services, bringing the total number of services to date in the country to 13.

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