Mental health services have seen a \u201csignificant change\u201d for the better, but the construction of modern premises for public patients must be faster.<\/p>\n
Out of 67 centres, eight achieved full 100% compliance with all regulations. Some 24 regulations had a compliance rate of 80% or over.<\/p>\n
Reports of physical restraint dropped by 11.5% compared to 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some 454 residents were secluded in a room compared to 434 the year before, but the commission noted this remains lower than previous years.<\/p>\n
Applications by An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na to involuntarily detain people increased last year compared to a small number of applications made by authorised officers, however.<\/p>\n
Chief executive John Farrelley said infrastructure is a key gap, saying: \u201cIt comes down to the HSE mechanisms for delivering capital programmes and it needs to be quicker.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He described waiting on new premises for years as \u201cnot fair on the people who live in those areas”.<\/p>\n
About 70% of all centres are public, with many private centres housed in new buildings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat means if a person has health insurance, they have better choices,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the person who doesn\u2019t have health insurance doesn\u2019t have the same choices, but the standards should be the same.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He pointed to the \u201cdramatic difference\u201d following an investment of \u20ac6.4m by HSE Dublin & Southeast for a new community residence in Dungarvan as an example of what can be done.<\/p>\n
However, he said at the Mercy University Hospital, \u201cstaff there deserve a medal for being able to get the compliance levels within that physical building”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s “just not designed for mental health”, he said.<\/p>\n
In general, he said: \u201cSeclusions are down, physical restraint is down, the amount of conditions we\u2019re having to apply to centres is down.<\/p>\n
\u201cNotwithstanding that [some issues remain], if we could get the last three or four regulations right, we\u2019re seeing a significant change in the system.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is reassuring, he said, adding: \u201cI\u2019m definitely noticing a shift when I go out speaking to people and meeting the staff.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Responding to the report, the national coalition of 83 organisations, Mental Health Reform, called for \u201ccontinued investment\u201d.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Helen Gillespie Brown said: \u201cWhile there have been some positive improvements, the report raises significant concerns regarding high levels of non-compliance in key areas.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She also welcomed the decline in use of restrictive practices as showing \u201can important cultural shift towards human-rights-based care\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mental health services have seen a \u201csignificant change\u201d for the better, but the construction of modern premises for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-520085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}