Mental health patients could lose out in the move to new HSE regions unless these services and its funding are protected, consultants have said.<\/p>\n
There are \u201csignificant concerns\u201d for these services as the move towards regional care continues, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (ICHA) conference heard in Kilkenny.<\/p>\n
Dr Amanda Burke, national clinical lead for the HSE child and youth mental health, said ringfenced funding has supported these services up to now.<\/p>\n
However, she said there is \u201ca really big concern\u201d that this could be lost.<\/p>\n
She highlighted worries already raised within the sector about potential \u201closs of continuity of care\u201d and a reduction in service quality, as well as \u201cdelays in responding to risks\u201d.<\/p>\n
The plans could lead to a more fragmented service, she indicated.<\/p>\n
She pointed out that this goes against recommendations in the Maskey Report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That report looked at children\u2019s mental health services in the South Kerry region, finding harm caused to a number of children.<\/p>\n
Answering questions from panel moderator Bryan Dobson, she said it is important that consultants in any service \u201ccan influence budgetary decisions and that these are being made in a consistent way across the country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is a potential downside of moving to a regional structure, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you ensure consistent application of national policy across the country, so no matter where you live in the country, you get the same service?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, Dr Burke acknowledged that there are also criticisms of how existing services run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This includes people worried about how separate mental health and disability services are.<\/p>\n
This can mean, she said, that \u201cneurodiverse children being bounced from one service to another and nobody taking responsibility for integrated care”.<\/p>\n
She indicated the regional model could improve this situation by having local services work more closely together.<\/p>\n
The conference also heard a separate panel discuss digital healthcare in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Robert Watt, Department of Health secretary general, said plans for electronic health records are moving ahead.<\/p>\n
These digital records will eventually see an end to cumbersome paper records used in hospitals and community care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the HSE has estimated this could take seven or more years.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe health minister is hoping to bring it to Government in the next few weeks, to push ahead with the procurement plans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added: \u201c(Jennifer Carroll MacNeill) will be going to Government to say the business case has been developed and there is assurance about that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The next stage will be tendering to the market. The procurement process is set to start before the end of this year, he later told reporters at the conference.<\/p>\n
The cost is not yet known.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This summer, it was reportedthat\u00a0 the cost in Northern Ireland for a digital records system is now expected to reach \u00a3360m (\u20ac414.7m).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mental health patients could lose out in the move to new HSE regions unless these services and its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,41529,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-226713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-childrens-health","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}