A wider review into mental health care provided to children in north Kerry is expected to be completed within the year and will focus on children most at risk of harm, Minister for Mental Health Mary Butler has said.
The head of the health service has apologised for failures in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) in north Kerry, describing the issues identified as “unacceptable”.
On Wednesday, an independent review into the north Kerry Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) found 209 children had been at risk of potential harm.
The report highlighted a number of concerns, including high rates of prescribing, low rates of talk therapy and inadequate health checks. It particularly highlighted concerns among patients with intellectual disabilities.
In a statement on Thursday, Bernard Gloster, chief executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE), said he apologises “unequivocally” to those affected by the look back review.
“I am truly sorry for the harm caused and we will continue to work to improve, reform and invest in mental health services for young people in Kerry, and indeed throughout the country,” he said.
“For families and children attending services today, I want to offer reassurance that our services will respond to you and it is a safe service unlike that which led to this review.”
Gloster said in 2023, a national HSE child and youth mental health office was established, which takes into account all recommendations and audits issued in relation to these services.
“I am conscious that for the people of Kerry and indeed CAMHS service users across the country that their confidence has been eroded. While all of our improvements are good and welcome, there is no doubt but that our services in Kerry were so far below the acceptable standards as to cause risk of harm,” he said.
“That is unacceptable, it is not good enough and for that I am sincerely sorry.”
Gloster added that the HSE has referred the doctor at the centre of the review to the Medical Council.
Speaking earlier, Dr Amanda Burke, national youth mental health lead, said the standard of care in north Kerry was “not what anyone should ever have experienced” and “clearly there was a failure of oversight.”
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland on Thursday, Burke said there was currently no full-time consultant child psychiatrist in north Kerry, though the report had said there should be four. However, she said, there were arrangements in place with “more than four” consultants to provide services.
An audit system is now in place to ensure that what happened before would not happen again, she added. There was also now a “robust clinical governance structure”.
For families or patients whose cases were not included in the recent review, there was the option to request their case file and to ask for it to be reviewed, she said.
Speaking on the same programme, Louise Rooney of Mental Health Reform described the report as shocking and highlighted the challenges facing the mental health system.
Parents would be bringing their children to Camhs appointments today and they deserved to feel confident in the service they were accessing, she said, adding that confidence needed to be rebuilt in Camhs.
Rooney, who is Mental Health Reform’s policy and research manager, said it was seeking the inclusion of the statutory right to independent advocacy in the forthcoming Mental Health Bill and an independent complaints mechanism.
The statutory right to independent advocacy was important, she said, as parents were not currently being informed of the side effects of medications being prescribed while children felt “they were not being listened to.”
With regards to the need for an independent complaints mechanism, she said that, as things stand, people were essentially complaining about the HSE to the HSE.