Dan Boyle
Question:180 Mr. Boyle asked the Minister for Health and Children the progress in implementing the Planning for the Future report on mental health services. [23165/02]
Written Answers. - Mental Health Services.
In 1984, the Government published Planning for the Future, the report of a study group set up to examine the psychiatric services. The report recommended that psychiatric care should be primarily community oriented, and that there should be a shift away from the psychiatric hospital being the focal point of the service. Successive Governments have supported this policy and the shift in mental health care from the institutional to a community based setting has resulted in many improvements.
There are now 18 acute psychiatric units operating in general hospitals, replacing Victorian admission units. A further three units will become available to their respective mental health services in the near future, two units are under construction and several others are at various stages of planning. In relation to community residences, there are approximately 400 community psychiatric residences in the country providing over 3,000 places.
It is the intention to continue the growth in alternatives to hospitalisation with the further development of community based services throughout the country. Additional revenue funding of €10.473 million was allocated in 2002 toward his further development of community based mental health services primarily for the establishment of additional multidisciplinary teams. The recently published health strategy, Quality and Fairness – A Health System for You, includes a commitment to prepare a new national policy framework for the further modernisation of the mental health services, updating the 1984 policy document.