HSE to conduct major 'lookback' review of Camhs mental health cases in North Kerry
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The HSE will now conduct a lookback review in North Kerry Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs), similar to the review which resulted in the Maskey Report in South Kerry a year ago, amid potential concerns in 16 of 50 files already analysed.
Cork Kerry Community Healthcare today confirmed that a lookback review will take place, having received a final report last Saturday from the team of Camhs consultants who have been carrying out a random file audit at North Kerry Camhs.
According to a HSE spokesperson: "We commissioned this audit following the publication of the Maskey report, in order to give assurance about the care at North Kerry Camhs.
"The audit team have raised potential concerns in 16 of the 50 files they reviewed, including some relating to prescribing practices and some clinical concerns about the professional practice of a clinician. That clinician is not working at this time.
"Eleven of these young people have already been offered a clinical review, and we are today making direct contact with the other five young people, again to offer them a clinical review.
"We are working to identify a clinical lead so that the review has the necessary external, independent oversight."
The spokesperson said the review would first look at the files of young people who are currently under the care of North Kerry Camhs before then delving into previous cases.
"As we are at the beginning of the process of setting up a review, we cannot confirm today how many young people or files may be involved however we can say that this will be an extensive review," the spokesperson said.
"We understand that young people under the care of North Kerry Camhs will wish to know if they are among the 16 cases where concerns have been raised, and that this news will understandably cause considerable concern for young people who are or were under the care of North Kerry Camhs."
The HSE said it already has been or will be in direct contact as soon as possible with any young person or their family where concerns have been raised to date, and that clinical reviews have been offered to 11 of the 16 cases in which concerns were raised.
"We are today making direct contact with the other five young people to offer them clinical reviews," the spokesperson said.
If anyone under the care of North Kerry Camhs has concerns, the Kerry Camhs helpline remains open on 1800 742800, from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and the opening hour are currently extended from 8am to 8pm.
Just last week, local Sinn Féin TD Pa Daly had again queried why the audit into North Kerry Camhs had not been published.
The announcement of the Lookback Review comes almost a year after the publication of the Maskey Report and on the same day as a highly critical interim report by the Mental Health Commission was published into its own review of half the CHOs in which Camhs operates across the country.
On the news that a Lookback Review will now take place, Deputy Pa Daly said: "I had been saying more or less since the Maskey Report was published that you were going to find the same problems and you were going to have to carry out a lookback review, going back 15 years, on the North Kerry files.
"The exact same problems to do with overprescribing, in particular, could be seen well before the junior doctor who as at centre of Maskey Report came to light.
"It just has to be as comprehensive as possible — there could still be one or two [young people] who still haven't come forward and who have suffered harm."
Deputy Daly also questioned the timing of the announcement by the HSE today regarding the situation in North Kerry.
"It seems to me on the face of it to be a cynical move for the HSE to bring it out today when we were told in the autumn of last year it would be out in two weeks," he said.