Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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686. To ask the Minister for Health the additional funding in Budget 2023 that has been allocated for primary care psychology, excluding existing levels of service; the areas in which this funding will be spent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48436/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The total Budget allocation for mental health services in 2023 is over €1.2 billion. This is another record budget for mental health services, which includes the greatest increase of €72.8m given in one year and demonstrates the commitment of the Government to this key care programme. This significant investment will enable implementation of many of the short and medium-term measures in our national mental health policy, Sharing the Vision, enhancing the provision of mental health supports across a broad continuum from mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention, to acute and specialist mental health service delivery, and enabling us to continue to deliver our vital services to as many people as possible, as we move into 2023.

In 2021, funding of €4 million was allocated to an initiative to target a reduction in the waiting list for children and young people under the age of 18 waiting over 12 months to access primary care psychology services, further investment of approximately €1.4 million in early 2022 was secured to support the ongoing initiative. This year, the Government’s Waiting List action plan also assigned funding of €5.5 million to primary care child psychology services.

In 2022, the primary care psychology waiting list initiative has enabled almost 2,400 young people to access the service than otherwise would have. The initiative consists of work being implemented across the CHOs to tackle this waiting list and includes validation exercises, increased tele-screening and tele-consults, and increased provision of individual and group workshops as appropriate. Almost 2,500 young people have been removed from the primary care psychology waiting list through the work of this initiative.

The HSE has also targeted the recruitment of staff psychologists, clinical psychologists, and administrative support staff, with campaigns underway across the CHOs. A national recruitment campaign to replenish the psychology assistant panel is also underway, which is expected to have a positive impact on activity and waitlist trends.

Although primary care psychology is not the focus of the Enhanced Community Care Programme, the service will benefit from the new network structures, improvements in multi-disciplinary working and focus on local population needs.

As occurs each year following the Budget, discussions will now take place with the HSE on details relating to specific service initiatives in the context of preparing the HSE Service Plan 2023, including that for Mental Health.