Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 253: To ask the Minister for Health the amount, not percentages, of the health budget allocated to mental health in the years 1990, 2000, 2010 and in 2011; and the amount of the mental health budget allocated and spent in delivering mental health services in primary care, excluding services provided by psychiatric secondary services in the community [25471/11]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The following table provides details from the Revised Book of Estimates for the Public Services of non-capital expenditure on mental health for the years requested:

Approximately 60% of the Primary Care Teams in operation have mental health personnel either on the team or have direct linkages with mental health services and up to 90% of mental health problems are dealt with at primary care level. However the HSE is not currently able to extrapolate the cost of providing these mental health services from within the overall primary care budget, as budgets are not tracked by care group and, because for example, a wide range of services provided to patients by GPs in their surgeries, are not reported to the HSE.