The role of Assistant Psychologist supports the provision of psychology services in primary care settings, enabling delivery of early and cost-effective interventions for children and adolescents, and is key to delivering a “stepped care” model in which service users receive the level of required support and/or intervention appropriate to their assessed need.
The establishment of 114 paid Assistant Psychologist posts within HSE Psychology Services on a pilot basis was a key action in the HSE's National Service Plan for 2016, with the posts coming on-stream in a phased basis during 2017, and funding of €3.4m being provided for implementation of this important initiative.
The employment of Assistant Psychologists in HSE Primary Care Psychology services is a time-limited pilot project and is being independently evaluated. All Assistant Psychologist posts were due to complete their contracts by the end of July 2020 when the evaluation was originally due to be finalised.
However, due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was necessary for this evaluation process to be paused during 2020 and, as several months of data was not collected, the HSE report that the initiative has been extended to the end of September 2021. After this date, a final report and assessment of the pilot project will be completed, and a decision on the future of the programme will be made.
The elements of this question relating to an advertisement for unpaid Assistant Psychologist posts and number of staff working in a voluntary capacity are operational issues and, as such, are a matter for the HSE. However, members of the Oireachtas are advised that the HSE is currently unable to access the information to answer Parliamentary Questions due to the recent cyber-attack, which has required a temporary shut-down of HSE IT systems. The disruption to service is on-going, and the HSE is working hard to restore its IT capacity and resume normal services. Members of the Oireachtas will be advised as soon as the HSE is again in a position to provide responses to PQs and are encouraged to resubmit their Parliamentary Questions at that point.
