CAMHS compensation scheme extended

Back home, the Minister with Responsibility for Mental Health Mary Butler has announced the

extension of a compensation scheme for more than 200 CAMHS patients found to have been exposed

to potential harm following a review of the Child and Adult Mental Health Service in North Kerry.

Last month, the HSE published a review into CAMHS in North Kerry, which found that of the 374

cases recorded as active in November 2022, 209 people had been exposed to a risk of potential harm.

That was more than half of the cases reviewed. Our southern editor, Pascal Shihi,

has the latest developments. Pascal, can you take us through what the Minister has been saying

this lunch time? Okay, there are a number of elements to this Rachel.

principally, last month, we learned that there were over 200, 209 CAMHS patients in North

Kerry, who were part of a review that found that they had been exposed to potential harm.

We learned that last month, however, there was no avenue for those children to

and young people to avail of compensation for the harm and potential harm that they had been

exposed to. Mary Butter has put the meat and the bones of a compensation scheme this afternoon

that she said she would do when that review was published last month. And effectively what she is

doing is she is extending a non-adversarial compensation scheme under which there has already been

around 300 settlements to CAMHS patients in South Kerry. Sorry, this scheme will now be extended

and will be opened to CAMHS patients from North Kerry, those 209 patients who were found to have

been exposed to the risk of harm or actual harm in the case of their review. That's the first part

of what's being announced today. The second part is separate to the minister's announcement.

The HSC has announced that it is also extending the review that it undertook into CAMHS cases

in North Kerry. And this in a way, this was obvious that this had to happen because in more than

half of the cases that were reviewed and they were cases selected at a point in time in November

2022, more than half of those patients were found to have been exposed to harm. Now the HSC is

going the rest of the way and it is announcing an extension of the review of CAMHS patients in

North Kerry from November 2022 back to a time in 2014 when it assumed responsibility for the CAMHS

service in North Kerry. And that review will be undertaken by the existing team under Dr.

Khaled Halpen which conducted the review that was published last month. And the final part is

that if you are not covered by the review that I was already undertaken or the review that is about

to be undertaken, the extended review and you still have concerns, you can request your own

personal review. And if you were found to have been subjected to harm, the compensation scheme

will be thrown open to you as well. Pascale, many thanks for that. Our southern editor Pascale Shehi.