HSE underspends on mental health by €15m

New figures released by the Health Service Executive (HSE) show they spent nearly €15.5 million less on Galway mental health services than they had allocated in their budget over the last four years.

Yet they did not adversely affect patients, the agency insisted.

Last year alone there was an underspend of €6m in the sector in Galway.

The business manager for the HSE, Anne O’Neill, stated the savings were due to changes in drug prescribing, reduction in absenteeism, reduction in overtime and agency costs and reduced on call payments.

They were made as part of a major reconfiguration for mental health services under the Government’s A Vision for Change policy.

“For all of these reasons, the underspend did not have a negative impact but occurred in association with a growth and development of services in recent years with additional staff appointments and a range of new services introduced,” said Ms O’Neill.

“An important element of this reconfiguration process is an increased emphasis on the development of community based care. This change in the way we deliver services has reduced acute bed occupancy days in tandem with increased provision of community based alternatives,” she stated in a letter to Galway East TD Colm Keaveney.

“Galway/Roscommon has been successful in securing a significant number of new posts which are being used to enhance community mental health teams and address suicide and self harm and requirements in emergency departments.”

However the reasons given for savings of this magnitude did not ring true for the Fianna Fáil spokesman for mental health.

“Even if savings of such a scale could have been achieved, any savings achieved should have been retained in the Galway mental health services and used to enhance the care being provided and bring it closer to an acceptable level,” he insisted.

“The consequence of chronic underfunding is acute. We have 3,000 children waiting twelve months for their first appointment in the mental health services. Yesterday Childline reported that 300 children rang in a distressed state who were saying they were suicidal.

“There has been a significant spike in the numbers of children who are self harming. Because of the significant waiting lists it leads to more acute outcomes. A third of all children who enter into mental health care are kept in adult wards – it’s a lifetime stigma and it’s not the experience that a child deserves or is entitled to.

“At a time when mental health services within the city and county are struggling to cope with demand, it is disgraceful that an underspend of almost €6m was reported last year.”

Deputy Keaveney said nationally there was an underspend in mental health of €70m out of a budget of €700m which he believed had been moved to other parts of the health service for political and electoral reasons.

“This is a slap in the face to those in need of help from the mental services and to their families. It is also a betrayal of the frontline health professionals who are trying to deliver a service, will being denied the resources they need to do so.”

“The government believes it can get away with it, relying on the still significant levels of stigma surrounding mental health to avoid any public protest by those reliant on the services or their families,” said the Tuam TD.

He said Minister of State Kathleen Lynch has refused to offer any coherent rational as to why this underspend has been tolerated.

The figures show that in 2014, the budget allocated to Galway mental health services was over €57m, while in excess of €51m was spent for the year.

In 2013, nearly €58m was allocated, but €6m less was spent; for 2012 the budget was €58m, while nearly €54m was spent; in 2011 the budget was €60m but that year there was an overspend of nearly €1m.