Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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743. To ask the Minister for Health if he will report on the way his Department is honouring the commitment to fully implement A Vision for Change. [34088/17]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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'A Vision for Change', published in 2006, set out a 10-year policy framework for Ireland's mental health services. It recommended that interventions should be aimed at maximising recovery from mental illness, building on service user and social network resources to achieve meaningful integration and participation in community life.

The Government is committed to increasing the Mental Health budget annually, as shown by the substantial additional funding of some €115m provided for mental health from 2012 to 2016. While slower than originally anticipated, progress continues to be made in implementing the Report’s recommendations. The focus in the early years was on the closure of old psychiatric hospitals in favour of community service development. The implementation of Vision has been given specific priority in recent years with the additional ring-fenced Government funding over the period 2012-17, specifically aimed at modernising mental health services in line with Vision and Programme for Government commitments. A key focus has been approval of some 1,550 additional posts to strengthen Community Mental Health Teams; enhancing specialist community mental health and forensic services, increasing access to counselling and psychotherapy; and developing suicide prevention initiatives. These posts are directly facilitating the policy of moving away from traditional institutional based care to a patient-centred, flexible and community based mental health service. Staff recruitment and retention has been a challenge for the HSE for various reasons, with approximately two thirds of these posts filled so far. Recruitment continues and the HSE has also prioritised specialist areas identified in Vision,which were underdeveloped in the past (eg. Eating Disorders, MHID, Forensics, Peri-natal MH).

The HSE National Service Plans in 2016 and 2017 highlight the broad range of ongoing reforms in mental health services. Overall, service improvements in recent years have included the continued development of bespoke new facilities better suited to modern mental health care, the development of child and adolescent services, shorter episodes of in-patient care, the adoption of a recovery approach in the delivery of services and the involvement of service users in all aspects of mental health policy, service planning and delivery. The improvement of services has been aided in large part by the establishment of the HSE Mental Health Division, which was set up in 2014, delivering on a key recommendation of A Vision for Change.This Division carries operational and financial authority and accountability for all mental health services nationally.

The Department of Health is currently advancing a review of A Vision For Change.Having commissioned an Expert Evidence Review (completed in February 2017), an Oversight Committee will shortly be established to begin the process of updating our mental health policy.