HSE Child and Youth Mental Health Office statement following the publication of the report on the Look Back Review into North Kerry CAMHS

Commenting on the publication today of the final report of the North Kerry CAMHS Look Back Review, the HSE National Clinical Lead for Child and Youth Mental Health, Dr Amanda Burke said, “This report clearly outlines the ways in which many young people were failed by the mental health services that were provided to them. I would like to echo the apology provided to those young people and their families by Dr Andy Phillips, the HSE South West Regional Executive Officer.

This Look Back review identified a number of concerning findings in the care provided to 209 children and young people who were in the care of the CAMHS service in North Kerry on 21 November 2022. These findings included high rates of prescribing of psychotropic medication in the absence of talk therapies, deficits in physical health assessment and monitoring of patients on medication, higher rates of polypharmacy than is considered standard practice, and parents not being adequately consulted or informed of the nature of medications being prescribed.

An independent prescribing audit commissioned by the HSE in 2023, conducted in response to the issues that emerged in Kerry, identified no similar concerns relating to prescribing practices in CAMH services anywhere outside of Kerry.

The findings and recommendations of this review are similar to those found in the original Maskey review of South Kerry services, and implementation of them has been underway since that review was published. Since then a significant programme of service improvement has been undertaken to address the recommendations at local and National level in CAMHS and Child and Youth Mental Health. The HSE Child and Youth Mental Health Office was established in September 2023 and has published a targeted three-year action plan incorporating all recommendations from the Maskey Report, the Mental Health Commission’s (MHC) Report on CAMHS provision and the HSE’s internal audits on prescribing practice and adherence to the CAMHS operational guidelines.

“The HSE wants all children, young people and families to have equitable and timely access to high-quality mental health services. The action plan works towards redesigning and delivering integrated Child and Youth Mental Health services which are safe, easy to access and appropriate to individual needs. Key to this will be our roll out of the single point of access and the electronic health record for CAMHS later this year.

“Together we are improving the consistency and safety in how care is delivered, through improving accessibility and ensuring the involvement of children, young people and their families in the design, delivery and evaluation of mental health services,” continued Dr Burke.