People who use mental health services die 20 years earlier due to ‘poor general health’

People who use mental health services die 20 years before their time because of “poor general health”, the sector’s watchdog has said.

Prof Jim Lucey, State inspector of mental health services, said there has been a “transformation in public sentiment” towards mental health from the days of asylums to the reduced stigma that is now in place.

There have been significant improvements, such as reduced institutionalisation and restrictive practices, but now one of the “big issues” is ensuring those with mental health difficulties get equitable access to other healthcare.

“Access 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 in general, trying to engage through mental health, beyond the old asylum notion and into the community,” he said.

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.

Up to now, only one per cent of the State’s 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), under its remit.

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.

John Farrelly, chief executive of the Mental Health Commission, acknowledged the progress made in mental healthcare in recent decades, but said “too often people still do not experience the care they deserve”.

“There’s a lot of really good services out there but there’s also a significant amount of people who want the services to be more accessible, locally, in their communities,” he said.

He said the lack of regulation in the sector means there is insufficient data on service gaps as well as on standards.

“We know from listening to people, parents, children, clinicians and even the Government that we have to build out our community services. We wouldn’t be doing that if we were absolutely happy with everything.”

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

“There’s highly efficient Camhs services and then there’s Camhs services that need to improve ... some are more effective than others,” he added.

Richard Hogan, a family psychotherapist, paid particular attention to the difficulties among young people today.

“I think what’s happened to our children is we have isolated them. For teenagers, children, I think there’s a massive epidemic of loneliness today because of [a lack of] soft skills,” he said.

“Principals say to me that when their friend is out, they won’t come to school either because they don’t know how to talk to somebody because their best friend isn’t in. That’s the eradication of resilience.”

Hogan added that the current system is “pathologising the environments” teenagers are living in.

“We’re regularly rolling out these heavy, psychotropic drugs because we haven’t got the systems. Hopefully this act will bring the systems in place,” he added.