HSE achieves just two of 16 mental health targets

PSYCHIATRIC patients are struggling to access vital services for their recovery due to a “painfully slow” reform of the sector, with just two of the Health Service Executive’s (HSE’s) 16 targets for 2008 achieved by the start of this year.

Ahead of the third anniversary on Saturday of the HSE’s much-heralded A Vision for Change policy document for the reform of mental health services, the Irish Mental Health Coalition (IMHC) has warned that progress remains practically non-existent, with the risk of further delays.

The A Vision for Change document set out a series of measures leading to the reform of the historically underfunded mental health services, including an increase in consultant psychiatric posts, an end to children being treated in adult wards, and a focus on mental health services in the community instead of the traditional institutionalised setting.

However, in its own report, Late For An Important Date, the IMHC has said that signs of the high-profile reform process continue to be “painfully slow”, with almost none of the targets for the end of 2008 having been met by health authorities.

According to the document, to date the HSE has failed to fully meet a series of reform targets, including:

lA detailed implementation plan with yearly targets, time frames, and staff resources

lRingfenced funding for mental health services

lThe appointment of a directorate of mental health as called for by the report’s monitoring group

Service users to be represented on the National Service Users Executive

Additional consultant psychiatric posts

Additional eating disorder services

Specialist services for child and adolescent patients nationwide

“When A Vision for Change was published in January 2006, it was to be the blueprint for a radical new approach to a newly prioritised mental health system,” said IMHC chairman John Saunders

“However, there has been a lack of Government action to match rhetoric. Progress in implementing policy outlined in A Vision for Change has been slow and lacking in transparency.

“The result is that people using services, their families and carers are struggling to access services which meet the most basic standards laid down for mental health services.”

According to the IMHC report, demands on services are increasing, with 20,769 admissions to inpatient mental health units and hospitals in 2007 compared to 20,388 in 2006 — the first year-on-year increase since the mid-1980s.

The A Vision for Change document has come under considerable criticism in the past year, with the HSE confirming last June that only about half of the finances set aside for the reform process have been used as planned.

By last summer, an estimated €24m of the €51.2m allotted to the reforms had not been spent on mental health, with a significant proportion diverted to other areas of the health budget.

The Department of Health is due to release its own report on the progress of the A Vision for Change implementation on Monday.

Meanwhile, MEP for Leinster Liam Aylward yesterday told the EU parliament that more than one in four people on the continent suffer from anxiety disorders, depression, and other mental health concerns. He said that by the year 2020 depression is expected to be the highest ranking cause of disease in the developed world.

Currently in the EU, some 58,000 citizens die from suicide each year, more than the annual deaths from road accidents or homicides.

The comments were made during a EU Public Health Committee debate on plans to help member states provide more adequate services for mental health patients.