Urgent call to fill mental health posts

A NORTHSIDE TD has called for vacant posts to be filled in community mental health teams as a matter of urgency.
Deputy Tommy Broughan (Lab) made the call in response to a report from Minister of State at the Department of Health, Kathleen Lynch, who provided him with information about posts sanctioned for community mental health teams in the past three years.
Minister Lynch, who has responsibility for Disability, Older People, Equality and Mental Health, said that of the 891 posts approved over 2012/2013, approximately 740 (83 per cent) have taken up duty. She also said that 170 out of 250 posts sanctioned for 2014 had been allocated to service areas to enable the next cycle of recruitment to begin.
Deputy Broughan said the Government has promoted the establishment of community mental health teams as the way forward for supporting and providing services to citizens with mental health difficulties.

“Caring in the community has been a central aspect of the key policy document in this area,

‘A Vision for Change’, published in 2006,

? he stated.
Minister Lynch informed Deputy Broughan that since 2012, an additional

?¬90 million and some 1,150 posts have been funded comprising

?¬35 million for 414 posts in 2012,

?¬35 million for up to 477 posts in 2013, and

?¬20 million for approximately 250 posts in 2014.
Minister Lynch added that the posts were sanctioned for teams providing services to older people with a mental illness and people with intellectual disabilities and a mental illness.
She said the additional staff members were also sanctioned for forensic mental health services, to enhance access to counselling and psychotherapy in primary care and to invest in suicide prevention measures.
Minister Lynch provided Deputy Broughan with a further breakdown of the number of posts filled in 2012, 2013 and in the first nine months of this year.
She said that of the 414 posts allocated in 2012, 396 or 95 per cent, were in post at the end of June. Of the 477 posts allocated in 2013, as at the end of June, 332 or 70 per cent of the posts, had been filled, with a further 12 posts or 3 per cent with agreed start dates after 30 June 2014.
In relation to the allocation for 2014, the Minister said that it had been agreed to fill 170 of the 250 posts sanctioned for community mental health teams. She said the remaining posts from the 2014 allocation were currently being identified in the context of specific service improvement needs.
Deputy Broughan has called on Minister Lynch to prioritise the filling of all remaining vacant posts.