Local person waiting over three years for mental health therapies, warns Derry Councillor

Addressing Council’s Health & Community committee, the Derry representative said: “We could paper the Guildhall, inside and out, with strategies, action plans, position papers and independent reviews that have amounted to nothing because they weren’t given political priority and they weren’t given adequate resources or funding.

“The North has the highest rate of mental health problems in the UK, but it has the lowest rate of funding. Here in the Western Trust we have massive waiting lists because demand outstrips supply.

“We aren’t training enough social workers. We aren’t training enough mental health nurses. We aren’t training enough clinical psychologists. Vacancies exist everywhere.”

Colr. Farrell continued: “Only 40% of people with mental health problems in the North were able to access effective healthcare and 80% of people who sought treatment felt that the service they received was not what they needed.

“At November’s Council meeting I raised mental health waiting lists. One person in the Western Trust was waiting 171 weeks to access Psychological Therapies. I’ve looked at more recent data and they’re still waiting. They’re waiting nearly three and a half years.”

“The real test of this strategy and its implementation is going to be - can people access services in a timely manner and not have to wait three and a half years? And when they do access services, will it be the right service that makes an actual difference to their life?”