Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The choice of care for a patient is determined by the needs of the individual patient. Both talk therapy and medication are included in this process as options to consider. HSE specialist mental health services provide a wide range of talking therapies in both child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, and adult mental health services.

The HSE also provides talk therapies at primary care level through directly employed staff, for example, psychologists in primary care and counsellor therapists in counselling in primary care and the National Counselling Service. Counselling in primary care was launched in July 2013. This was established to provide counselling for patients experiencing mild to moderate psychological difficulties who present in the primary care setting. All adults in receipt of a medical card are eligible for the service. Since its establishment the service has grown rapidly with almost 19,300 referrals during 2017 and counselling provided from more than 180 locations nationwide. These services have been enhanced recently through the recruitment of 114 assistant psychologists in primary care. The HSE also employs counsellors, therapists and psychologists in primary care addiction services.  In addition to directly employed staff, the HSE funds partner organisations such as Jigsaw to provide talk therapies.

In order to ensure greater consistency and equity of access to these services HSE mental health commenced a service improvement project in January 2018 with a view to developing a model of care for adults who attend specialist mental health services accessing talking therapies. While the project focuses specifically on adults attending specialist mental health services, it will also describe other services that currently provide talk therapies from HSE funding. Building on a stepped care approach, the model of care is expected to involve an assessment of the need for talking therapies taking into account stakeholder perspectives and the prevalence of mental health disorders within the adult population. It will consider evidence-based talking therapies that are best suited to meet the identified needs and outline a recommended operational model for talking therapies provided by general adult community mental health teams.

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