Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 February 2005
51 Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children the further measures she proposes in order to provide support for persons with mental illnesses who are discharged from psychiatric institutions and hospitals, especially in view of the high level of homelessness among persons with mental health problems. [4198/05]
View answerThe former inspector of mental hospitals has expressed concern in a number of his reports that homelessness continues to be a problem for many mentally ill persons, leading to neglect, premature mortality, delayed or absent treatment and unnecessary prolonged in-patient stays.
Additional funding of €30.2 million has been provided by my Department since 2000 to deal with the issue of homelessness. The main difficulty with regard to adult homelessness has been in the Dublin area and in order to address this the former Eastern Regional Health Authority, ERHA, appointed a director of homelessness who is working to implement the provisions of "Homelessness — An Integrated Strategy", May 2000.
To address the mental health needs of homeless people in the Dublin area, the three former area health boards were commissioned by the ERHA to provide multidisciplinary mental health teams. Multidisciplinary teams will play a key role in developing services that are responsive, targeted and effective and include the following key elements: the provision of screening, assessment and treatment to homeless people with mental health problems; targeting those homeless people sleeping rough with mental health problems; bringing the mental health services to hostels, day centres and other settings where homeless people present; and providing support and consultancy to homeless services and their staff on mental health issues and concerns.
Guidelines on good practice and quality assurance in mental health services were issued by my Department in 1998. The guidelines state that well planned discharge policies and procedures should be in place and should include documentation and a pre-discharge checklist to ensure that all appropriate information is given and appropriate services arranged prior to a patient's actual discharge. A post-discharge care plan should be prepared and discussed with the patient and arrangements must be made for the first review of the patient post-discharge.
The homeless preventative strategy was published in 2003. The strategy is designed to prevent homelessness among those leaving institutional care and provides guidance to service providers to ensure procedures and policies are in place to further reduce the risk of people leaving institutional care becoming homeless.
An expert group on mental health policy was established in August 2003 to prepare a new national policy framework for the mental health services, updating the 1984 policy document "Planning for the Future". The issue of homeless mentally ill persons will be considered by the group. The group has now completed an extensive public consultation process on the mental health services and the findings of this process were published just before Christmas. The expert group is expected to complete its work later this year.
