From Department of Health
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Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and Minister for Mental Health and Older People Mary Butler today announced an additional €1.9 million in funding for women’s mental health services in 2022 through the Women’s Health Fund.
The latest allocation of up to €1.9 million from the Women’s Health Fund will see a significant expansion of mental health supports and services for women and girls across Ireland. This investment builds on mental health funding of €1.149 billion in Budget 2022, the largest mental health budget in the history of the state.
A person’s gender can have a significant impact on their mental health needs and service requirements. Ensuring the provision of gender-sensitive mental health services and supports is a key priority for Government, in line with the recommendations of our national mental health policy, Sharing the Vision. This additional funding will allow for further enhancement of our mental health services by ensuring that they appropriately meet the needs of women and girls, who are often disadvantaged when accessing services that are not gender sensitive.
This allocation will increase investment in both community and primary care mental health services for women and girls, with an emphasis on mental health promotion and early intervention. In addition, specialist services for women and girls who have more complex care needs will receive further funding to ensure they are gender and trauma aware.
Following consultation with the HSE, the department will allocate up to €1.9 million to accelerate the development of a range of services to support women and girls, including:
Minister Donnelly said:
“Today’s announcement is the result of long-standing collaboration between officials in the department and the HSE working with clinical experts and experts by experience to propose targeted measures to improve the supports available to women and girls in 2022.
“The range of supports provided by this investment will make a real and lasting difference to the mental health services available to women and girls in Ireland. We have more to do but I’m delighted we could accelerate support for these services mid-year through the Women’s Health Fund."
Minister Butler said:
“We know that women can experience mental health differently to other genders, with challenges relating to perinatal mental health, eating disorders, and caring responsibilities all having a significant impact. We also know that marginalised women can be disproportionately affected and have difficulties accessing services. This investment targets these key concerns, with a range of enhanced supports in areas including perinatal mental health, eating disorder specialist clinics, and innovative telehealth supports.
“I look forward to the outputs of the specialist group on women’s health, which will provide key insights into how we can further support the mental health of women and girls in Ireland.”
This investment builds on the progress underway through Sharing the Vision, as well as the Women’s Health Action Plan 2022-23, which has identified improving women’s mental health outcomes and experiences as a central priority.
The National Implementation and Monitoring Committee (NIMC) Specialist Group on Women’s Mental Health was established in August 2021. The purpose of the Specialist Group is to advise the NIMC Steering Committee on the implementation of Recommendation 3. This recommendation ensures that mental health priorities and services are gender-sensitive and that women’s mental health is specifically and sufficiently addressed in the implementation of policy.
The specialist group is set to report on its recommendations in the coming months which will see further actions proposed to support gender sensitive mental health services in Ireland.
Increasing access to digital health services: Online supports for mental health have grown significantly in recent years. This investment will expand access to online CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) as well as providing programmes on perinatal wellbeing and body image.
Innovating in perinatal mental health: The team based perinatal mental health model of care is fully funded and supports women at all stages of pregnancy and early motherhood nationwide. This allocation will support innovation in how perinatal care is provided through the expansion of Creative Arts Therapy services following the successful roll-out of a pilot programme in University Hospital Limerick. This investment responds to the voices of women who asked for a broader availability of treatment options for their perinatal mental health needs.
Enhancing specialist eating disorder supports: Additional funding will be provided to enhance medical expertise provided to the 6 specialist eating disorder community teams currently under development. The funding will also allow for enhanced integrated care between acute settings, community eating disorder teams, and paediatrics.
Targeted mental health supports for marginalised groups: This investment will support research to understand the mental health challenges, service needs and potential interventions for women from the Traveller and Roma community experiencing suicidal ideation.
Targeted mental health supports for women in addiction: This investment will increase supports for women who have both substance use and mental health difficulties, through the development of a “Seeking Safety” model, supporting women with dual diagnosis within their communities.
Responding to at risk girls’ mental health: This investment will expand early intervention services for young people at risk of developing psychosis, where the majority of young people presenting with early signs of psychosis are girls. This investment will support vital early intervention through the development of Ireland’s first At Risk Mental State clinic.
Continuing to listen to women and girls: This investment will support research to include the voices of women in specialist mental health service improvement. This research will capture the experiences of women as service users, carers as well as exploring the impact of menopause on mental health and the role of early intervention.
This investment builds on mental health funding of €1.149 billion in Budget 2022. This is an additional €47 million for 2022 and comprises €24 million for new developments, €13 million for existing levels of service and €10 million in once off funding for COVID-19. An additional €10 million was announced in January 2022, as a once off funding measure with a particular emphasis on community and voluntary based supports.
Recommendation 3 (Sharing the Vision): The Department of Health Women’s Health Taskforce and the National Implementation Monitoring Committee will undertake a joint project within 12 months to outline an effective approach to the mental health of women and girls. The project should ensure that mental health priorities and services are gender-sensitive and that women’s mental health is specifically and sufficiently addressed in the implementation of policy.
The National Implementation and Monitoring Committee (NIMC) Specialist Group on Women’s Mental Health was established in August 2021. The purpose of the Specialist Group is to advise the NIMC Steering Committee on the implementation of Recommendation 3 (see Notes).
This specialist group has a short-term remit to “gender-proof” the Sharing the Vision strategy and support a focus on gender in its implementation. This approach will be presented via a report of recommendations to the NIMC Steering Committee.
After a series of meetings and workshops, it is planned that the NIMC Specialist Group on Women’s Mental Health will now provide a report of concise, feasible, and evidence-informed recommendations for specific consideration to the NIMC Steering Group and the HSE Implementation Group within the overall implementation approach.