New trouble for HSE as mental health agencies can’t fill posts

The HSE has is facing a new problem in staffing mental health services — the agencies from which it draws temporary staff are also struggling to fill posts.

Anne O’Connor, national director HSE mental health, told an Oireachtas committee the problem has emerged over the past year and beyond, claiming that the high standard to which Irish psychiatric nurses and mental health staff are trained meant they were more likely to be poached by other countries.

“We do try and staff what we can with our own staff,” she told the committee on the future of mental health care. “What has hit us in the past year that has probably not hit us before is that some agencies can’t get staff. There is a general shortage of the staff that we need. In the last year to 18 months agencies and funding partners have that issue.”

She said due to the level of training provided here “our nurses are therefore very attractive to other jurisdictions. Our nurses go.” She said the UK, in particular, was offering attractive packages and added that the Bring Them Home campaign last year resulted in a small number of mental health staff returning to Ireland, admitting that some would not return home for the packages on offer. “It didn’t cut it for us,” she added.

The committee was hearing from the HSE on the implementation of Vision For Change, the report of the expert group on mental health policy, published in 2006 and adopted as government policy but which has been beset by failures to deliver on its commitments, primarily due to a lack of resources.

In her opening remarks to the committee Ms O’Connor conceded “the inability to recruit some key clinical staff due to early retirement options for nurses and international competition for some specialist consultant staff has frustrated efforts to improve services at a faster rate”.

However, she said actual staffing in October was nearly 80% delivery of the Vision for Change recommendation. Also, 69 of the 79 recommended Child & Adolescent Mental Health teams and 30 of the 48 recommended Psychiatry of Later Life teams are in place, but there was just 56% of the recommended staffing levels for CAMHS and nearly 61% for Psychiatry of Later Life.

She said significant capital development has taken place in recent years, but it was estimated that in excess of €500m in additional funding is required to meet all future mental health infrastructure requirements. Issues over recruitment also impacted on consultant positions, with a survey showing rosters, general work pressures and lack of facilities being cited as reasons why some were not attracted to the idea of working in Ireland.

Dr Philip Dodd, national clinical adviser for mental health, said the National Suicide Research Forum had figures showing 13% of those presenting at hospital emergency departments with self-harm left without being assessed, but data from 16 level three and level four hospitals last year showed a rate of 9.9%.

Excluding patients referred to the general hospital or receiving on-site treatment, the rate fell to 7.2%. He said this compared favourably with figures in the UK.