Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 2 December 2004
78 Ms Enright asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children her views on the report of the mental health inspector on the difficulty in recruiting and retaining psychologists, social workers and occupational therapists and the fact that many of these professionals do not find careers in psychiatry attractive; the steps she has taken to deal with the issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31765/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraSubstantial progress has been made in recent years in ensuring that those in need of mental health services receive the best possible care and treatment. Additional funding of approximately €90 million has been invested in mental health services since 1997. This funding has enabled real progress to be made in providing additional medical and health professional staff for expanding community mental health services, to increase child and adolescent services, to expand old age services and to provide liaison psychiatry services in general hospitals.
The Deputy may wish to note that specific human resource initiatives in the key areas of psychology, social work and occupational therapy will contribute significantly to meeting the workforce requirements of the mental health services.
In psychology, a bursary model for supporting postgraduate clinical psychology training was adopted by my Department and the health boards' directors of HR group. This is underpinning the implementation of a key recommendation of the union-management joint review group on psychological services in the health services to substantially increase the number of training places in clinical psychology from 30 to 50 and support the establishment of new courses at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and the University of Limerick. This increase in training places will help meet the long-term human resource needs of the health service for clinical psychologists and is, therefore, of very significant benefit to those who need to avail of psychological services.
In social work, a recent expansion of numbers has taken place on the masters courses in social work and coupled with the first graduates from the UCC degree course, which restarted in 1999, has almost doubled the potential output of qualified social workers in a short period of time. There is now an average intake of 200 students on social work courses each year, including 150 postgraduate places and 50 undergraduate places.
Significant progress has been achieved in expanding the numbers of professional training places in occupational therapy. Three new courses commenced in the 2003-04 academic year in UCC, NUIG and UL. In total, these courses will provide an additional 75 training places in occupational therapy. This expansion in training numbers has been identified in the Bacon report as sufficient to meet the long-term requirements for occupational therapists in Ireland. TCD has also expanded the number of students on its occupational therapy course to 40 in the last number of years.
As the Deputy may be aware, an expert group on mental health policy was appointed in August 2003 to review all areas of mental health policy and service provision. A subgroup has been set up specifically to look at manpower and training issues and this includes the issue of attracting health care professionals to work in mental health services. The group is expected to complete its work in 2005.
