Mental healthcare review should involve ‘users and providers’

MORE than 40 independent organisations, including Amnesty International, have criticised the lack of consultation on a planned review of Ireland’s mental healthcare system.

The groups said yesterday that the Government's policy review will prove futile unless the composition of a proposed expert group is expanded to include patient representatives and other service users and providers.

"The time has come for formal consultation on the planning of mental healthcare, if Government rhetoric is to correspond to reality," said Amnesty's Irish director Seán Love.