Written answers

Tuesday, 27 November 2012

Department of Health

Mental Health Services

Photo of Dan NevilleDan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Health the role of the mental health services in the Strategic Framework for Reform of the Health Service 2012 to 2015 [52332/12]

Photo of Kathleen LynchKathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Our Programme for Government lays a strong emphasis on mental health and provided for special additional funding from 2012 onwards primarily to strengthen our multidisciplinary community based mental health services, to also enable access to mental health services in primary care settings and to advance suicide prevention measures. In line with this policy and as set out in the recently published Strategic Framework for Reform of the Health Service 2012 - 2015, it is proposed that as far as possible mental health care should be treated in a similar way to other acute episodes of care and funded on a ‘Money Follows the Patient’ basis. However, international evidence indicates that this is not easy to achieve in mental health services.

I would refer the Deputy to Chapter 10 of the Framework document which describes the plans for the reform of all Social and Continuing Care Services including Mental Health. As part of the move to Hospital Groups/Trusts, specific arrangements will be put in place to accommodate acute in-patient mental health services. Such services are increasingly being delivered in or on the grounds of general hospitals. Specialist Mental Health Services are, however, also provided in a variety of other settings including through day hospitals, day centres, respite houses, community and home based treatment teams. The strategy is that resources must be efficiently managed, targeted at areas of greatest need, and delivered at the point of lowest complexity.

It is anticipated within ‘Future Health’ that all these services will eventually be provided through a strategic commissioning model which will commission or procure packages of services specified by a care needs assessment. In the mental health sector, services outside the acute in-patient hospital based services will largely continue to be provided by the public sector in whatever structure or framework is found to best suit its needs and it will be the responsibility of the new Director of Mental Health to ensure the development of effective and efficient governance arrangements to give effect to the new policy within the context of the overall health reform programme.

Photo of Dan NevilleDan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Health the expenditure on mental health services as a percentage of the overall health services expenditure in each of the years 2005 to 2012 inclusive [52333/12]

Photo of Kathleen LynchKathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Details of the overall gross non-capital health and mental health budgets are published annually in the Revised Book of Estimates. Based on that information, the following table details the mental health budget as a percentage of the total non-capital health budget for each of the years 2005 - 2012 inclusive:

20052006200720082009201020112012
7.0%8.3%7.8%7.3%6.9%6.8%5.3%5.8%

About 1 in 4 people will experience some mental health problems in their lifetime, approximately 90% of mental health problems are dealt with in primary care and some 30% of people who attend primary care have a mental health problem and expenditure on these services is not captured in the mental health budgets or the percentages above.

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