AQW 15243/17-22

Ms Paula Bradshaw
Alliance Party
South Belfast

Tabled Date: 23/02/2021
Answered On Date: 01/07/2021
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health to detail his plans to ensure that everyone has access to counselling services within 28 days via their General Practitioner or Talking Therapy Hubs.

Answer:

Adult Mental Health services in Northern Ireland are delivered in line with the mental health care pathway and the Stepped Care Model. In general, Steps 1 and 2 are provided through Primary Care and include counselling, involvement of the community and voluntary sectors and, where available, referral to talking therapies/ wellbeing/ psychological therapies hubs.

Many GPs have signed up to a Local Enhanced Service to provide a mild to moderate depression counselling service in-house. The time a person has to wait to access GP in-house counselling services will vary according to the clinical need of each individual patient.

My Department has been working to make additional mental health support available in Primary Care through the Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDT) programme, which has introduced new social work, physiotherapy and mental health roles into General Practice. By March 2021, around 600,000 people had access to at least an element of a MDT within their GP practice, with the overwhelming majority of those able to access support through a practice-based mental health practitioner. Throughout the pandemic, MDTs have played a key role in the HSC response. Mental Health Practitioners and Social Workers worked very closely in proactively identifying and supporting those who are most vulnerable and providing support at an early stage.