Reduction in mental health staff despite increase in demand - report

A new report from the Psychiatric Nurses Association and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) shows there has been a serious reduction in staffing levels in mental health services, despite an increase in demand.

The General Secretary of the PNA, Des Kavanagh says that cutbacks to mental health services in recent years have been too severe.

The association is calling for an increase in staffing and resources and for the crisis in out reach services to be addressed immediately.

It is ten years since the government introduced its ‘Vision for Change’ mental health strategy, which the Association says has been a means of cutting investment and removing services.

Mr Kavanagh told Newstalk Breakfast that the vision document "was excellent and we supported it, it became government policy, but the reality has been that the employers and the government used that vision to deliver the closure of wards, and the closure of hospitals to achieve savings and not used those savings for the purpose intended of proving alternative services.

“The position right now is that around three quarters of respondents in this research have identified huge deficits in the provision of a range of services in the community that are essential to the provision of safe mental health services.

“It’s a combination of factors. The report found that many areas didn’t have full multi disciplinary team make up, in some cases there were shortages of nurses, in other areas shortages of doctors, psychologists. It’s a fairly bleak picture.”