Sinn Féin spokesperson on Mental Health, Mark Ward TD, has said that a postcode lottery of care in mental health services has been seen once again in the annual report of the Mental Health Commission.
Speaking following the release of the Mental Health Commission’s annual report this week, Deputy Ward added that the HSE must properly invest in these mental health facilities and prioritise individual care planning.
Teachta Ward said:
“The Mental Health Commission annual report made several worrying findings once again bringing to light how the lack of funding and priority from Government is affecting services.
“Another year and another report that highlights the postcode lottery of care that exist within our services.
“If we look at the inpatient beds that are available across the state, the largest proportions of beds are within Dublin, Cork and Galway. This is understandable given population of these areas. What is not understandable is that there are no beds for CAMHS or Intellectual Disability outside of these three areas.
“There are also no independent beds for mental health outside of these three areas.
“Cork has fewer beds than Galway for CAMHS despite population differences. This is not acceptable.
“Compliance rates of approved centres differed vastly over the topics Individual Care Plans, Premises, Staffing and Risk. These were measures of good practice and areas of concern.
“CHO 6 (Wicklow and Dublin South East) had a 0% compliance rating for premises, staffing and risk with a total average of the four measures of just 16.7%. This is a cause for alarm. CHO 5 (South Tipperary, Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford) by comparison had a 60.7% average.
“CHO 5 also was almost 50% higher for staffing level compliance than the 2nd highest CHO, CHO 2 (Galway, Roscommon and Mayo). I have regularly raised low staffing levels as a hinderance to services. These figures are a cause for concern.
“74% of overcapacity reports came just from CHO 3 (Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary), which represents 34 instances. Three CHOs did not have a report of overcapacity. How can such a problem be so evident in one area and not at all in others?
“This detailed report by the Mental Health Commission again paints the picture of a postcode lottery of care within mental health services. We have had failure after failure by Government in trying to address this. This is not an issue that they are looking to correct and people are losing out as a result.”
Appendix
CHO Area 1 – Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan and Monaghan
CHO Area 2 – Galway, Roscommon and Mayo
CHO Area 3 – Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary
CHO Area 4 – Kerry and Cork
CHO Area 5 – South Tipperary, Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford
CHO Area 6 – Wicklow and Dublin South East
CHO Area 7 – Kildare, West Wicklow, Dublin West, Dublin South City, and Dublin South West
CHO Area 8 – Laois, Offaly, Longford, Westmeath, Louth and Meath
CHO Area 9 – Dublin North, Dublin North Central and Dublin North West
