Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 November 2023
583. Deputy Colm Burke asked the Minister for Health if he will reinstate the position of National Lead for Mental Health within the HSE to ensure oversight and improvement in mental services across the State; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49868/23]
View answerThe Government remains committed to developing all aspects of mental health, under our national mental health policies and the HSE Annual Service Plans. The total budget for mental health services for 2024 is over €1.3 billion. This significant investment will enable implementation of many of the short- and medium-term recommendations 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.
Sharing the Vision has a ten-year implementation roadmap, overseen by an independently-chaired National Implementation and Monitoring Committee (NIMC). The Sharing the Vision Implementation Plan 2022 – 2024 was collaboratively developed by the HSE and the Department of Health, overseen by the NIMC. The NIMC is tasked with driving and monitoring the implementation of the policy. The NIMC publishes quarterly Policy Implementation Status reports which are available on the Department of Health website.
While the HSE had in place a National Director for Mental Health for a number of years, in 2018 a decision was made as part of the process of developing revised organisational arrangements to reflect the introduction of three new senior HSE roles (Chief Operations Officer, Chief Strategy & Planning Officer and Chief Clinical Officer) to undertake a realignment process in the Corporate Centre and it is not envisaged to reinstate this specific post under Sláintecare.
At a national level, there is a national Mental Health Operations Lead and a National Clinical Lead for Mental Health focused primarily on adult services. The Operations and Clinical leads work closely together to provide leadership to the delivery system, to ensure delivery of services in line with the National Service Plan, and to implement policy in this area.
In addition, the recognition of the need to strengthen the leadership and focus on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services is evidenced by the recent appointments of an Assistant National Director for Child and Youth Mental Health, Mr Donan Kelly, and a Clinical Lead for Child & Youth Mental Health, Dr Amanda Burke. They will both be supported in their new roles by the new National Child and Youth Mental Health Office in the HSE. A focus for the new office will be an improved approach to data and analysis to help inform future service responses for mental health and to deliver more integrated supports for child and youth mental health care across Ireland.
I believe these recent appointments in senior leadership roles within mental health will further strengthen the national leadership across our mental health services.
