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

I thank the Senator. It is the policy of the HSE, as reflected in its annual service plans, to provide an age appropriate mental health service for those under the age of 18 years. I reiterate the Government's commitment, in view of the significant additional funding allocated in recent years for the development of all aspects of the mental health service, including services for young people. I will continue to make the case for the allocation of further resources annually in line with evolving demands and in accordance with the commitments given in A Programme for a Partnership Government.

The HSE service plan 2018 commits to further developing the child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. This is against a background where the demand for access to CAMHS increased by 26% between 2012 and 2017 and where various youth mental health initiatives, other than the specialist CAMHS service, are also being progressed.

We have 69 CAMHS teams and three paediatric liaison teams that are supported by around 75 CAMHS beds nationally. Further beds are planned to come onstream as quickly as possible. In addition, the Government has agreed to fund an extra 140 psychiatric nurse undergraduate places each year to help to improve the planning and delivery of services in the next few years.

A key difficulty being addressed on a steady basis by the HSE is staff recruitment and retention, particularly in the sphere of CAMHS. The recent appointment by the executive of 114 assistant psychologists and 20 psychologists will help to develop counselling services in primary care. It is anticipated that these posts will deal with the less complex child and adolescent cases and thereby reduce the demand on CAMHS. In addition, I recently approved ten new posts of advanced nurse practitioners, ANPs, that will be specifically directed at the CAMHS service nationally. The new ANPs will play a key role in delivering better service co-ordination where local service pressures are greatest.

The HSE Linn Dara CAMHS service covers a region comprising County Kildare, west Wicklow and south west Dublin and reflects a total population of around 420,000. There are seven multi-disciplinary community CAMHS teams for these areas. The HSE has indicated that a decision was taken by the Linn Dara management team to temporarily suspend its day programme from Friday, 6 July. This was to maintain essential community and inpatient services. It is expected that the day programme will reopen in September or October. The decision was taken owing to psychiatry and allied health professional temporary staffing shortages within the community sectors. To maintain essential provision of services, psychiatry and multi-disciplinary staff have been reassigned from the adolescent day programme to maintain other key community-based Linn Dara services and manage their overall capacity at this time. The small number of young people who were scheduled to attend the adolescent day programme will continue to attend their existing community CAMHS teams and receive appropriate individual and therapeutic programmes.

The HSE has a statutory responsibility to ensure safe, adequate and sufficient service provision in all areas of the CAMHS service. The Linn Dara inpatient unit will remain fully operational as normal, with 22 beds available, as well as functioning community teams. The Senator may rest assured that I will keep this matter under close review and that all efforts will continue to be made by the HSE to address ongoing service difficulties at Linn Dara.