Niamh Smyth
Ceist:9. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Health if he will report on the Specialist Group on Women’s Mental Health under the Sharing the Vision plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16772/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThursday, 31 March 2022
Ceisteanna (9)
Freagraí ó Béal (6 píosaí cainte)
I ask about the new mental health policy, Sharing the Vision, launched in June 2019. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has been doing much good work on this and launched the implementation plan last week. What is the status of the report of the specialist group on women’s mental health under the policy?
I thank the Deputy for this important question. Providing rapid access to high-quality mental health services and the supports needed is an absolute priority for me, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and the Government. I would say that is the case for everybody in this House. Sharing the Vision: A Mental Health Policy for Everyone was published in June 2020 and is our national mental health policy. We are now implementing this strategy with a total allocation of €1.1 billion in the current budget. It is the largest mental health budget in the history of the State. It has been put there to ensure this is rolled out. As the Deputy quite rightly said, Sharing the Vision, though an excellent strategy, was not at the time gender-proofed.
One of the issues we are prioritising at the moment is women's health. This relates to both their physical health, and we launched the women's health action plan two or three weeks ago, but also their mental health. One of the things we are doing that has come out of the work is to gender-proof the various strategies, with one of them being mental health. As we all know, mental health services are needed by men and women and boys and girls but there are some services exclusively used for women such as perinatal mental health. There are also services where we know the majority of service users are women, young women or girls. I am referring to eating disorders and self-harm, for example.
As part of the national implementation and monitoring committee that oversees the implementation of Sharing the Vision, various specialist groups have been established. The specialist group has a short-term remit to gender-proof the strategy with a focus on gender-proofing and implementation. This is just one of the ways we are embedding and prioritising women’s health.
The group the Deputy referred to is chaired by Dr. Siobhán McHale. It includes a mix of mental health and women’s health specialists. It is supported by a diverse consultation panel involving a wide range of professional and civil society perspectives to inform the process.
I thank the Minister. It is good to see action aimed at increasing mental health supports in response to the Covid-19 pandemic but we know issues were already present. According to the statistics, work-related stress, depression or anxiety account for 44% of work-related sickness and 54% of work days are lost because of it. The number of women who experience mental health difficulties in pregnancy and afterwards is one in five. It is, therefore, important to talk about women's mental health and prioritise action. All aspects of the mental health services are being improved and developed through the implementation of this national mental health policy, Sharing the Vision. The commitment has been given by the Minister of State, Deputy Butler. It is an action plan that will be there for the long term and it is a long-term commitment. That is so important.
The Minister mentioned the different working groups. Has the reference group of service users and family members been established and if not, what is the timescale for that?
The national implementation and monitoring committee specialist group on women's mental health was established by my Department in August last year at the request of the national steering committee. The purpose of this specialist group is to advise the committee on implementation of the following recommendation from the Sharing the Vision implementation plan :
The Department of Health Women’s Health Taskforce and the National Implementation Monitoring Committee will undertake a joint project within 12 months to outline an effective approach to the mental health of women and girls. The project should ensure that mental health priorities and services are gender-sensitive and that women’s mental health is specifically and sufficiently addressed in the implementation of policy.
That is the approach that is being taken. We have ongoing implementation of Sharing the Vision and we now have a very substantial piece of work under way looking at women's mental health within that. I imagine the national approach will be adjusted, updated and improved accordingly. I will get a note for the Deputy on her final question on the service users.
I thank the Minister. As a woman, I welcome the fact that the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health is a woman. That is very important.
What is the status of the recruitment of psychology teams across the HSE? This is an issue that the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, have been working on and it comes across my desk regularly. Finally, what is the best avenue for applying for grants associated with the women's health fund announced in budget 2022? I have been contacted by numerous people about this funding. It is really important that this funding is provided for women's mental health but I am finding it hard to get information on how to apply for it.
I fully concur with the Deputy's comments on the Minister of State, Deputy Butler. She has been doing a fantastic job and we really are putting women's health front and centre. We launched a strategy document approximately three weeks ago and every Member should have received a copy in his or her pigeonhole by now. I encourage colleagues to take a look at that strategy, which takes a whole life cycle approach to women's health for the first time. Obviously, part of that is mental health. We are looking very specifically at mental health supports for girls and young women, for example. As part of the national listening exercise, perinatal mental health came out as one of the big unmet needs. I am delighted that the new perinatal mental health teams are now being put in place, which is revolutionary. I was in Galway recently where I met a full, brand-new team that includes psychiatry, psychology, social work and therapeutics. It is an amazing team, all of whom are women, as it happens. It is fantastic to see that this is now being built out and making a real difference to women's mental health.