HSE south-west to move staff from other areas to tackle shortage of psychology services

The Cork/Kerry region has experienced ballooning waiting lists for child psychology appointments since 2020, with nearly 5,000 children still waiting to be seen as of May 2024.

The top executive in the HSE south-west has said it plans to move staff from other areas to try to tackle the chronic shortage of psychology services, particularly for children in Cork/Kerry.

The Cork/Kerry region has experienced ballooning waiting lists for child psychology appointments since 2020, with nearly 5,000 children still waiting to be seen as of May 2024, a 25% increase in less than a year.

Dr Andy Phllips, regional executive officer for the southwestern division, acknowledged that the Cork/Kerry area in particular currently has “a very large number of psychologist vacancies”.

He told the HSE’s ‘Integrated Healthcare’ conference in Dublin, that the health service in his area is hoping to address the issue of chronic healthcare vacancies in certain areas by hiring people by region, rather than by specific location.

“What we’re trying to do to tackle the problem is to take a more regional approach, to try to appoint people to the region rather than to specific units,” he said. 

“That’s a challenge as well, as people want to work at the bigger places, but that’s the offer that we’re making to colleagues.

“We’re trying to take people with us on that, because we want some standardisation, and we want people to be able to work at different places. We don’t want there to be places where we can’t get service delivered and other places where we’re quite rich in people,” Dr Phillips said.

Recruitment

The Irish Examiner recently revealed that there are just 1.6 whole-time equivalent psychologists assigned to the North Lee region, which has seen its waiting lists more than treble between 2020 and 2024.

Despite this, the HSE’s regional function has declined to release information on what recruitment campaigns have been deployed in the Cork/Kerry region’s psychological services over the past four years, despite blaming the ongoing waiting list crisis on "recruitment challenges".

Separately, the Minister for Health has been accused of deploying “vague management speak” in answer to queries regarding the Cork/Kerry child psychology crisis.

Questioned by Social Democrats leader and local Cork TD Holly Cairns about the crisis, Stephen Donnelly acknowledged that the Cork/Kerry region “has been particularly challenged in relation to those waiting over 3 years for service”.

He said the local senior management team in the region is “presently working on a service improvement plan” for children awaiting psychological supports, one which will “include staff development and staff optimisation across the region to meet clinical need, as well as continued linkages with third level training facilities”.

“There will be a strong focus on an integrated children's psychology model across the community care groups and acute services, to support patient flow to avoid blockages across teams and services,” Mr Donnelly said.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

However, addressing the Minister’s response, Ms Cairns said it “fails to reassure that the crisis in Cork/Kerry primary care psychology services is being addressed”.

“It's clear from HSE responses to my PQs that there has been chronic understaffing of primary care psychology services in Cork/Kerry, and some of the most populated areas have been left with fewest staff,” Ms Cairns said, adding that Mr Donnelly’s response “offers vague management speak instead of real solutions to a deepening crisis”.

“What we need is an extensive recruitment drive for frontline psychology staff to begin immediately in Cork/Kerry,” she added.