'Inefficient and unsafe': CAMHS report raises serious concerns about children on medication not getting follow-up care
A LARGE NUMBER of children and adolescents seeking mental health treatment don’t receive necessary follow-up care, a new report has found.
The interim report, authored by the Inspector of Mental Health Services, Dr Susan Finnerty, was published by the Mental Health Commission today. Through her analysis, she also found evidence that some CAMHS teams were not monitoring antipsychotic medication, in accordance with international standards .
CAMHS staff members “worked extremely hard within the often-limited resources to try to provide a good service to the public”, the report states. Maskey Review The stark findings in Dr Finnerty’s report come a year after a review into CAMHS services in South Kerry. These issues included sedation, emotional and cognitive blunting, growth disturbance, serious weight changes, metabolic and endocrine disturbance, and psychological distress.Shutterstock / Viktoriia Hnatiuk File photo Shutterstock / Viktoriia Hnatiuk / Viktoriia Hnatiuk
‘Lost’ cases The CAMHS team working in the area where 140 “lost” cases were identified had already started reviewing these files prior to the Dr Finnerty’s work commencing. Our core concern should be for the health and welfare of these children and the priority now for the HSE must be identifying and safeguarding the children “lost” to follow-up. “The Inspector of Mental Health Services has advised the HSE to commence an immediate clinical review of all open cases in all CAMHS teams, with particular focus given to identifying and assessing children who have been lost to follow-up and physical health monitoring of those on antipsychotic medication.
Commenting on the review, Damien McCallion, HSE Chief Operations Officer, said the report “comes at a time when we have a major CAMHS improvement process underway, and we will be putting a senior clinical/operational team in place to drive and support that process”.
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