Dan Neville
Question:633. Deputy Dan Neville asked the Minister for Health the role of the mental health services in the Strategic Framework for Reform of the Health Service 2012 to 2015 [52332/12]
View answerTuesday, 27 November 2012
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Our Programme for Government lays a strong emphasis on mental health and provided for special additional funding from 2012 onwards primarily to strengthen our multidisciplinary community based mental health services, to also enable access to mental health services in primary care settings and to advance suicide prevention measures. In line with this policy and as set out in the recently published Strategic Framework for Reform of the Health Service 2012 - 2015, it is proposed that as far as possible mental health care should be treated in a similar way to other acute episodes of care and funded on a ‘Money Follows the Patient’ basis. However, international evidence indicates that this is not easy to achieve in mental health services.
I would refer the Deputy to Chapter 10 of the Framework document which describes the plans for the reform of all Social and Continuing Care Services including Mental Health. As part of the move to Hospital Groups/Trusts, specific arrangements will be put in place to accommodate acute in-patient mental health services. Such services are increasingly being delivered in or on the grounds of general hospitals. Specialist Mental Health Services are, however, also provided in a variety of other settings including through day hospitals, day centres, respite houses, community and home based treatment teams. The strategy is that resources must be efficiently managed, targeted at areas of greatest need, and delivered at the point of lowest complexity.
It is anticipated within ‘Future Health’ that all these services will eventually be provided through a strategic commissioning model which will commission or procure packages of services specified by a care needs assessment. In the mental health sector, services outside the acute in-patient hospital based services will largely continue to be provided by the public sector in whatever structure or framework is found to best suit its needs and it will be the responsibility of the new Director of Mental Health to ensure the development of effective and efficient governance arrangements to give effect to the new policy within the context of the overall health reform programme.