I second the motion because emergency mental health care services are not fit for purpose. Too many people in acute distress feel they have little choice but to present to chaotic and overcrowded emergency departments that are simply not designed to meet their needs. This motion is about fixing and reforming the system, not managing its failures. Specialist care and safe spaces, such as assessment rooms, should be available 24-7, so that no person in an acute mental health crisis is left without care or left waiting in a chaotic emergency department room, as far too many people are. However, far too often, these services are only available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. but, as we know, a crisis does not wait for normal business hours. This is no reflection on the staff in our emergency departments who do Trojan work. This is a resourcing problem and, I have to say, a political problem. Every acute hospital should have a separate mental health crisis room. Every emergency department should have a full complement of psychiatrists, specialist mental health nurses and allied care staff. They should be working with a full complement of suicide crisis assessment nurses, linked in with GPs, to provide an alternative to chaotic emergency departments. When suicide crisis assessment nurse, SCAN, services are understaffed, it piles more pressure on emergency departments and leaves no alternative for a person in crisis. In Waterford hospital, in the constituency the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and I share, which has one of the best performing emergency departments in the State, there is a dedicated room made available, which I welcome, but specialist staff are mostly only rostered during normal business hours. The psychiatry department is not fully staffed and out-of-hours care can be reliant on on-call specialists who are off-site. There are just two full-time specialist nursing posts for the suicide crisis assessment programme working out of Waterford, when at least five full-time posts are needed to provide 24-7 cover for the south east. That is replicated across the State. Nationally, every year, tens of thousands of people present to emergency departments in a mental health crisis, including experiencing suicidal ideation and severe mental distress. The Mental Health Commission has found that international best practice is not available in most emergency departments. The commission also found wide variation in quality across the State and that eight emergency departments did not have appropriate spaces for mental health crisis assessments. That exposes people to chaotic and unsafe environments. This motion is about making sure emergency departments are equipped to deal with somebody who has an acute mental health episode. We also need to make sure services are provided at community level as well. That is very often not the case and it is unacceptable that, as a result, far too many people end up in emergency departments, where staff are dealing with the chaos that arises when people are on trolleys and so on. This is not the best place for people to end up. We need to make sure we have community services in place. When people do go to emergency departments, there should be dedicated spaces available and the best supports should be given to those who need help and support.

Sentiment score: -0.27