Kenny criticises ‘failure to reform mental health services’

MANY of the targets set out in an ambitious 1984 programme to reform the mental health services have still not been met.

The document, Planning for the Future, set out a blueprint to shift mental health care away from institutional psychiatric hospitals to a community-based service.

While the number of long-term residents in Irish psychiatric hospitals has fallen consistently in the past two decades with more dramatic decreases in the past five years there still remains a substantial number of long-stay patients in institutions.