Mental health funding

I REFER to your report and editorial comment (Jan 17) on the 2012 HSE National Service Plan.

In relation to the mental health service the plan states “in 2012, prioritised under the Programme for Government an additional €35m has been made available to enhance General Adult and Child and Adolescent Community Mental Health Teams, improve access to psychological therapies in primary care and implement suicide prevention strategies in line with Reach Out National Strategy for Action on Suicide Prevention. Approximately 400 extra staff will be recruited to support this”.

The service plan states that the budget for mental health will be €707m in 2012, compared with€712m in 2011. This is in fact a reduction of €5m or 1% in the 2012 budget. There is no additional €35m available to mental health in 2012, in a political three card trick the minister and the Government have merely reduced the mental health budget by €40m and are now giving back €35m specifically for community mental health teams, dressed up as “additional funds” This portrayal of the €35m as additional funding is misleading and politically dishonest.

There is also a claim that an additional 400 staff will be recruited in 2012. The PNA projects that a least 600 psychiatric nurses will retire in 2012 largely due to changes in pension calculations from March 1, 2012. When retirements of all grades of staff are factored in, there will in fact be a 400 staff reduction in the mental health services in 2012 . Spending on mental health services will be 5.3% of the total health budget in 2012, which is less than half of the percentage spending of 11% being allocated to mental health services in Northern Ireland.

Cormac Williams

Branch Organiser

Psychiatric Nurses’ Association

Kerry Mental Health Services