John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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53. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide a reply to the recent response to the report from the Ombudsman for Children’s Office on Child Mental Health titled ‘A Piece of My Mind’; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26081/23]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Government remains committed to the development of all aspects of mental health services nationally, including those for children and young people. The total allocation for mental health services in 2023 is over €1.2 billion. This is another record budget for mental health services. A key objective is to improve access and address CAMHS waiting lists, in light of increasing demand and case complexity.

The Government welcomes the publication by the Ombudsman for Children’s Office (OCO) of the A Piece of My Mind report which helps us further understand the challenges that may exist in the provision of youth mental health services.

Minister Butler has met recently with the Ombudsman for Children to discuss youth mental health, including capacity challenges.

Evidence shows that only 2% of children and young people need the support of the specialist CAMHS multidisciplinary teams. Access is on basis of prioritised clinical assessment. Between 2020 and 2021, referral rates into CAMHS increased by 33%, while the number of new cases seen increased by 21% in that same period. 93% of urgent referrals to CAMHS have been responded to within three working days, exceeding the 90% target. 225,000 appointments were facilitated by CAMHS multidisciplinary teams during 2022.

Last month, Minister Butler completed a series of three high-level roundtables bringing together Department of Health, the HSE, and other key stakeholders across the youth mental health area to drive improvement in CAMHS with a focus on executive leadership, clinical expertise, and service provision.

While the Ombudsman’s report highlights some of the negative aspects of CAMHS, we must not lose sight of the tremendous work carried out by our specialist CAMH service and staff that benefits so many vulnerable young people and their families.

The Programme for Government commits to improve all aspects of CAMHS in line with Sharing the Visionand Connecting for Life, and the annual HSE Service Plans.

All aspects of CAMHS will be developed under the HSE Service Plan 2023, including a new post of Youth Mental Health Lead at Assistant National Director level, and a new Clinical Lead for Youth Mental Health, for the HSE to provide more integrated services overall. Recruitment is underway.

In collaboration with local CAMHS services, a waiting list initiative is underway specifically targeting areas where children and young people have waited longer than nine months.

Overall, there has been an increase of 91 in Mental Health service staffing numbers from 10,362 in December 2021 to 10,453 in December 2022.

The HSE increased staffing in community CAMHS from 388.76 WTEs in 2011 to 659 in December 2021.

The HSE is fully utilising opportunities offered by telehealth technologies to mitigate recruitment challenges and modernise delivery of mental health care.

The 35 recommendations arising from the Maskey report reviewing South Kerry CAMHS care will help improve all aspects of CAMHS care nationally. The latest HSE implementation framework contains a total of 63 actions (local and national) against the 35 recommendations. The 35 recommendations led to 63 actions, 19 of which (national and local) have been implemented, with others underway.

To provide assurance to those who use CAMHS, the HSE has commissioned independent national audits in relation to: prescribing practice, compliance with Operational Guidelines, and research into service user experiences of CAMHS.

The Mental Health Commission are also undertaking an audit of all 75 CAMHS teams. An Interim Report was published on 23 January last covering 5 of the 9 CHOs. The Government and the HSE has accepted the findings and recommendations of the recently published Interim Report of the Commission and is progressing consequent actions as appropriate. The final Mental Health Commission Report is expected around May.

10 new CAMHS beds are planned to open at the new Portrane Hospital and 20 new CAMHS beds are planned for the National Children’s Hospital.

Young people with mild to moderate mental health difficulties can access support at Primary Care level either through the HSE or through a range of organisations fully or partially funded by the HSE. Organisations that provide education and other support/clinical interventions at primary care level for young people and their families include Jigsaw, My Mind, Turn2Me and SpunOut.

The HSE provides around €137 million to CAMHS annually. In addition, it provided over €80 million to community-based mental health organisations in 2022 and a significant proportion of this was dedicated to those supporting child and young people.

Text 50808, funded by the HSE, provides immediate support for people going through mental health or emotional crisis. By the end of last year, the service was providing over 5,000 ‘conversations’ per month to support people of all ages.