James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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80. To ask the Minister for Health the way in which he plans to address the issues raised in the annual report of the Mental Health Commission and the inspector of mental health services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27743/19]

Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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127. To ask the Minister for Health if his attention has been drawn to the recent annual report of the Mental Health Commission which found unacceptable failings in hygiene and maintenance at units across services; and his plans to improve conditions and strengthen mental health patients' rights. [27651/19]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 80 and 127 together.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the important work of the Mental Health Commission in holding our mental health services to account, and helping to improve standards across facilities and services. The Department of Health is committed to the Mental Health Commission’s vision of a mental health service underpinned by the human rights of service users. 

I welcome the positive trend towards greater compliance with Commission regulations by the 64 Approved Centres in 2018. I note that compliance across Approved Centres has improved from 76% in 2017 to 79% in 2018. I am glad to see that the Commission has registered significant progress between 2016 and 2018, with 32 Centres achieving good compliance and no Centres with poor compliance. 

However, I recognise that further improvements are needed. The Commission, in both the 2018 Annual Report and in the Inspector's Report, identified areas of low compliance in certain Approved Centres. In instances where the high standards are not being met, it is important that the Commission continues to work with the HSE to identify solutions and to put these in place. In this regard, the HSE, with the Commission, has developed Corrective and Preventative Action Plans for centres found to be non-compliant. 

The Department of Health will continue to monitor progress made by the HSE in improving compliance, to improve service delivery for mental health service users across the system.