Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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32. To ask the Minister for Health if he will include key performance indicators for waiting lists for psychological therapy in the upcoming Health Service Executive plan 2013; if he will include indicators to measure not only the number of mental health service users but also the outcome of the use of these services to monitor and improve the services over time; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54087/13]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The Department of Health works on an ongoing collaborative basis with the HSE in developing and refining performance measures across all service areas, including mental health, to ensure that they are as robust and meaningful as possible and reflect key priorities and international best practice as well as being comparable both within the EU and further afield.

The National Director for Mental Health indicated that, during 2014, the HSE will develop a metric to collect information in relation to the numbers waiting for psychological therapy in the mental health services, to pilot the collection of the metric, with a view to including it in the 2015 service planning process.

The development of outcome measures in the absence of an ICT system in mental health is more complex. However, it is planned to build on the work currently underway in developing KPI's for General Adult and Psychiatry of Old Age Community Mental Health Teams to focus on developing access and quality metrics during 2014.