Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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162. To ask the Minister for Health if he will establish a public inquiry into the failings of the CAMHS service, to include historic funding decision making, failures by the Mental Health Commission to carry out inspections, clinical guidelines and prescribing rates, failures to provide alternative psychological, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and other therapies, the lack of inpatient CAMHS beds, and failure to include them in children's hospitals, including the new Children’s hospital; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7665/23]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The development of all aspects of mental health services, including CAMHS, is a priority under our Programme for Government and is being improved also in line with the widely agreed policy Sharing the Vision 2020-2030. This Government has increased mental health funding by some €200m - from €1 billion to a record €1.2 billion this year. The current CAMHS budget is around €137m, or approximately 11% of the overall HSE mental health budget. The new HSE Service Plan 2023 will underpin further improvements in CAMHS.

The Mental Health Commission is an independent regulator established under the Mental Health Act 2001. The Commission has statutory responsibility for supporting and assisting in the development and improvement of mental health services. The Department receives regular Inspect Reports from the Commission in relation to approved centres, as well as annual thematic reviews. The Commission published its Interim Report into CAMHS on 23 January last. My Department has regular Governance meetings with the Commission. I am unaware of any inspection failures by the Commission along the lines suggested by the Deputy, nor has such been brought to my attention or that of the Department.

There are acknowledged staffing recruitment and retention difficulties for the health service, including across mental health services and CAMHS. This is being addressed on an incremental basis by the HSE in light of the significant new development funding provided by Government over recent years. The HSE remains proactive in trying to address recruitment and retention challenges through investment in training courses, new posts, and recruitment nationally and internationally. Furthermore, Sharing the Visionhas provided greater flexibility to provide mental health staff at local level appropriate to best meeting evolving service needs in light of increasing demand and case complexity.

In terms of capacity and bed numbers, CAMHS in-patient bed capacity is 72 beds nationally but currently, due to a range of issues, there are 51 beds in operation. The waiting list nationally to access CAMHS units was 2 as of 7 February 2023. Further CAMHS beds are planned to come on-stream. For example, the new HSE National Forensic Mental Health Service complex at Portrane includes a 10 bed CAMHS unit – the first of its kind nationally. In addition, the new National Childrens Hospital will include a further 20 CAMHS beds.

As I have indicated on several occasions recently, I supported the Mental Health Commission in carrying out their annual thematic report into CAMHS, including offering any additional resources required for this. I therefore welcomed the recent Interim Report, including its focus around service quality and patient safety. The HSE has confirmed to the Department of Health that the issues raised in the Commission’s Interim Report are being proactively followed up at a national level, to mitigate against risk throughout the system as a whole and beyond the CHOs reviewed to date.

I and the Department have taken full and proper consideration of all issues of concern raised in the Mental Health Commission's Interim Report. We have taken account also, as reflected in recent Dail debates and elsewhere, of the views of relevant organisations in the mental health sector in relation to the Interim Report.

I await the Commission’s Final Report on CAMHS and, separately, the completion of the various audits now underway otherwise by the HSE arising from the Maskey report. More specifically, the HSE is undertaking key audits in relation to prescribing practice, adherence to CAMHS operational guidelines, and service user experience. Together, these reports will provide robust information to support the improvement of our specialist CAMHS service nationally.

In light of this focused and proactive approach to service improvement, it is not intended that a pubic inquiry of the nature suggested by the Deputy will be established.