O'Malley wants cut in mental health delays

Minister of State for Health Tim O'Malley has said he wants waiting lists for mental health services for children kept under constant review.

Speaking in the Dáil last night Mr O'Malley said child mental health services in Kildare had succeeded in greatly reducing their waiting times following the appointment of an advanced nurse practitioner who worked in close collaboration with the local multidisciplinary team to improve service access.

"This is the type of service improvement that I want to see achieved elsewhere. It has been done practically, effectively and cost effectively. I have asked the HSE to learn from this experience and apply it to reduce waiting times and improve access to child and adolescent services nationally, starting with those areas where access problems and delays are occurring," he said.

The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) yesterday claimed that Mr O'Malley had accepted that statistics on psychiatric waiting lists were valid.

Speaking after a meeting with Mr O'Malley, IHCA secretary general Finbarr Fitzpatrick said that the Minister did not query waiting list figures produced by the association. The Minister faced strong criticism earlier this month after he suggested that some psychiatrists liked having lengthy waiting lists.

"It makes them kind of powerful, that they feel if they have a huge waiting list of 100 or 200 people waiting to see you," Mr O'Malley told RTÉ.

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Margo Wrigley said that it was not unusual for children to have to wait two years for an appointment. She said that waiting lists were worse for young children aged under 11. Asked whether the IHCA would join in the calls for Mr O'Malley's resignation, Dr Wrigley said that he was the man in place and that the association would give him the chance to show that he could deliver on his plans for the psychiatric services.

Mr Fitzpatrick said that there was only " a fire brigade service" being operated in child psychiatry in some parts of the country.

He said that the budget for psychiatry had fallen from 13 per cent of health spending to 7 per cent over recent years.

The Department of Health said last night that there had been a wide-ranging discussion between the Minister and the IHCA on demands on services and service delivery. It said that the only discussion on waiting lists related to one service in one region.