{"id":673014,"date":"2026-11-02T20:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T20:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/673014\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T20:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T20:58:09","slug":"people-who-use-mental-health-services-die-20-years-earlier-due-to-poor-general-health-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/673014\/","title":{"rendered":"People who use mental health services die 20 years earlier due to \u2018poor general health\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

People who use mental health<\/a> services die 20 years before their time because of \u201cpoor general health\u201d, the sector\u2019s watchdog has said.<\/p>\n

Prof Jim Lucey, State inspector of mental health services, said there has been a \u201ctransformation in public sentiment\u201d towards mental health from the days of asylums to the reduced stigma that is now in place.<\/p>\n

There have been significant improvements, such as reduced institutionalisation and restrictive practices, but now one of the \u201cbig issues\u201d is ensuring those with mental health difficulties get equitable access to other healthcare.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccess to cancer services are far inferior to the rest of the population. This public sentiment of the whole of Government approach has meant we are not joining with the national cancer strategy, with the Department of Health<\/a> in general, trying to engage through mental health, beyond the old asylum notion and into the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lucey was speaking at the launch of the first ever standards for community residential mental health services in Ireland on Monday, which will affect around 200 centres and more than 1,000 residents.<\/p>\n

Up to now, only one per cent of the State\u2019s mental health services were regulated by the commission, but new legislation passed this year will bring community services, such as the child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs<\/a>), under its remit.<\/p>\n

The forthcoming regulations will be based on the published standards, which is seen as an important step to providing sufficient mental healthcare outside of the acute hospital system.<\/p>\n

John Farrelly, chief executive of the Mental Health Commission<\/a>, acknowledged the progress made in mental healthcare in recent decades, but said \u201ctoo often people still do not experience the care they deserve\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of really good services out there but there\u2019s also a significant amount of people who want the services to be more accessible, locally, in their communities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the lack of regulation in the sector means there is insufficient data on service gaps as well as on standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know from listening to people, parents, children, clinicians and even the Government that we have to build out our community services. We wouldn\u2019t be doing that if we were absolutely happy with everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farrelly said it is his understanding that Camhs will be regulated first; the commission has already visited the services to observe their practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s highly efficient Camhs services and then there\u2019s Camhs services that need to improve … some are more effective than others,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Richard Hogan, a family psychotherapist, paid particular attention to the difficulties among young people today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what\u2019s happened to our children is we have isolated them. For teenagers, children, I think there\u2019s a massive epidemic of loneliness today because of [a lack of] soft skills,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrincipals say to me that when their friend is out, they won\u2019t come to school either because they don\u2019t know how to talk to somebody because their best friend isn\u2019t in. That\u2019s the eradication of resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hogan added that the current system is \u201cpathologising the environments\u201d teenagers are living in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re regularly rolling out these heavy, psychotropic drugs because we haven\u2019t got the systems. Hopefully this act will bring the systems in place,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People who use mental health services die 20 years before their time because of \u201cpoor general health\u201d, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1420,3414,103,61,60,410,72503,411],"class_list":["post-673014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs","tag-department-of-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mental-health-commission","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673014","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=673014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}