Minister for Mental Health and Older People, Mary Butler hosted the first in a series of high-level roundtables bringing together Department of Health, the Health Service Executive (HSE) and other key stakeholders to drive improvement in (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) CAMHS, and to learn from best practice and patient experience.
The purpose of these engagements is to review wider CAMH services, including challenges within the system and opportunities for improvement. This will allow Minister Butler to explore further potential for service improvement and reform across the areas of executive leadership, clinical expertise, and service provision.
Key representatives of the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) sector, the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland (CPSYCHI), the university sector, the National Education Psychology Service (NEPS), Health and Social Care Professionals (HSCP) and the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) will take part.
This initiative supports implementation of Sharing the Vision, the national mental health policy by engaging with key stakeholders to understand the barriers and facilitators to implementation and service improvement. It will also complement progressing the new HSE Service Plan 2023 as it relates to CAMHS.
Minister for Mental Health and Older People, Mary Butler said: “It is an ideal time to convene these special meetings, which are over and above the normal close liaison I have with the HSE and others on mental health. We now have the new HSE Service Plan for this year, with record funding of over €1.2 billion for mental health. Timely progress is being made on the audits and reviews underway on CAMHS. I have also taken account of other factors such as the two new posts of National Lead, and National Clinical Lead, for Youth Mental Health which are now coming on stream in the HSE”.
It is anticipated that the findings of two of the national audits arising from the Maskey Report – one relating to prescribing practice in CAMHS and the other relating to adherence to the CAMHS Operational Guidelines – will be published by the HSE shortly. The third audit, on service user experience, will be available later this year.
The HSE is progressing a Look Back Review on CAMHS in North Kerry. In addition, the Mental Health Commission is expected to publish its Final Report on CAMHS in the near future, as a follow-up to its recent Interim Report.
Minister Butler remains committed to ensuring that the good momentum to-date arising from all the intensive efforts is focussed and progressed in a cohesive and effective way to maximise improvement on several fronts.
Minister Butler continued: “While the Government and the HSE have fully acted to address negative aspects of CAMHS that rightly were highlighted, we should not forget the tremendous work carried out by our specialist CAMH service that benefits so many vulnerable young people and their families. We need to continue to drive forward real improvement, including delivering on new planning and service delivery options. Ultimately, this will ensure better experiences and outcomes for our young people using CAMHS.”