Lack of staff in mental healthcare posing 'risk'

THE GOVERNMENT has clashed with the Health Service Executive over a freeze on staff recruitment which professionals say is undermining the quality and safety of mental health services.

While there has been a long-standing recruitment ban across the wider health service, the Government last year agreed to lift it for the appointment of 100 new mental health nurses.

However, just over half of these staff were hired.

The HSE says it “paused” the recruitment as a result of financial challenges facing the organisation, as reported in The Irish Times during the summer.

Concern over the effects of the freeze are growing due to recent developments in St Brendan’s Hospital in Grangegorman and at the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum.

The movement of five long-term patients at St Brendan’s from their open ward to a secure unit over Christmas has sparked controversy. Also, Dr Harry Kennedy, director of the Central Mental Hospital, has warned that a “chronic lack of staff” is affecting the quality of services.

In a letter to the HSE chief executive during the summer, published in yesterday’s Irish Examiner newspaper, Dr Kennedy warned of “serious community risk” as a result of the lack of treatment. Yesterday he said staff shortages were just as bad and likely to get worse as more staff retired and were not replaced.

Dr Kennedy said the Central Mental Hospital only had two of the eight psychologists and four of the eight occupational therapists it required, while its nursing staff had fallen by 12 and it may lose up to six more in the next two months.

“These issues are true of mental health services everywhere,” he said. “We are a specialist service and the moratorium on recruitment hits a service like this very hard.”

He said patients arriving into the service from prison, in particular, were not getting the full benefits of modern treatment, and were then being discharged.

Minister of State with responsibility for mental health Kathleen Lynch, said yesterday it was time for the HSE to hire the 100 staff sanctioned. “We need them to lift that pause,” she said. “These posts are necessary to deliver an efficient service in both community and acute units, to ensure services are delivered in a proper and timely fashion.”

In a statement yesterday, the HSE said the exemption for the replacement of 100 psychiatric nurses was unfunded and needed to be filled from within the HSE’s existing resources.

“In 2010, the HSE recruited 56 nurses to fill these posts, which were targeted at services most impacted by staff shortages. However, given the severe financial constraints on the organisation, the remainder of these posts could not be filled,” it said. The executive said it was working closely with the Minister to find ways to address the funding issues relating to the filling of psychiatric posts.

Ms Lynch yesterday visited St Brendan’s to see the temporary arrangements for the patients transferred to a secure unit.

She said she met most of the women involved and was satisfied they were being well cared for. However, she acknowledged the move was unsettling for them.