Autism and CAMHS access
Deputy Ó Murchú raised the difficulty autistic children and families have accessing CAMHS and other mental health supports, saying the autism protocol is not working everywhere. Minister of State Butler said CAMHS is for children with a primary mental health diagnosis and that much work has been done to reduce waiting lists.
I bring up the issue of the difficulty for autistic kids and their families in accessing necessary mental health services. I have just come from a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on autism with Families for Reform of CAMHS. We all know the ping-pong game that has existed between disability services and CAMHS. At times, it has been a case of no room at the inn if somebody has autism. I was told that the autism protocol was meant to deal with this but my understanding is it is not in operation across all community healthcare organisations, CHOs. That is something that needs to happen. Another issue Families for Reform of CAMHS brought up relates to CAMHS intellectual disability teams. Since September 2021, if a child has an intellectual disability, a regular CAMHS team will not see him or her. There are ten consultants, some of whom have no CAMHS team or only one or two. These are all issues that need to be dealt with. I will use the example of a 12-year-old child-----
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-----with autism. All private assessments have stated the child has ADHD but that child cannot get an assessment anywhere, which is necessary.
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I cannot comment on individual cases. I can tell the Deputy that a huge amount of work has been done to reduce the CAMHS waiting list. I, too, have met with the organisation the Deputy talked about. Its members are concerned about the potential dual diagnosis of children with autism and a mental health illness. I have to be very clear, and I have said this several times on the floor of the House, that CAMHS support is only needed for approximately 2% of children. Those children have a primary diagnosis of a mental health issue. Some children, for example, do not have such a diagnosis but have severe autism issues. That is where the difficulties arise. I have met with Families for Reform of CAMHS and attended the autism committee. The HSE is currently working on a programme to support these families.
On the additional €10 million that has been allocated, all of that money will be spent on youth mental health. The provision of a mental health intellectual disability, MHID, team is included in that.