{"id":775330,"date":"2026-02-19T17:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/775330\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T17:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:46:13","slug":"hse-chief-apologises-for-unacceptable-child-mental-health-failures-in-north-kerry-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/775330\/","title":{"rendered":"HSE chief apologises for \u2018unacceptable\u2019 child mental health failures in north Kerry \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of the health service has apologised for failures in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services<\/a> (Camhs) in north Kerry<\/a>, describing the issues identified as \u201cunacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, an independent review into the service<\/a> found 209 children attending the mental health services in north Kerry had been at risk of potential harm. <\/p>\n

The report highlighted a number of concerns, including high rates of prescribing, low rates of talk therapy and inadequate health checks.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Thursday, Bernard Gloster, chief executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE), said he apologises \u201cunequivocally\u201d to those affected by the look back review.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am truly sorry for the harm caused and we will continue to work to improve, reform and invest in mental health services for young people in Kerry, and indeed throughout the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor families and children attending services today, I want to offer reassurance that our services will respond to you and it is a safe service unlike that which led to this review.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gloster said in 2023, a national HSE child and youth mental health office was established, which takes into account all recommendations and audits issued in relation to these services.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am conscious that for the people of Kerry and indeed CAMHS service users across the country that their confidence has been eroded. While all of our improvements are good and welcome, there is no doubt but that our services in Kerry were so far below the acceptable standards as to cause risk of harm,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is unacceptable, it is not good enough and for that I am sincerely sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gloster added that the HSE has referred the doctor at the centre of the review to the Medical Council.<\/p>\n

Speaking earlier, Dr Amanda Burke, national youth mental health lead, said the standard of care in north Kerry was \u201cnot what anyone should ever have experienced\u201d and \u201cclearly there was a failure of oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9 Radio\u2019s Morning Ireland on Thursday, Burke said there was currently no full-time consultant child psychiatrist in north Kerry, though the report had said there should be four. However, she said, there were arrangements in place with \u201cmore than four\u201d consultants to provide services.<\/p>\n

An audit system is now in place to ensure that what happened before would not happen again, she added. There was also now a \u201crobust clinical governance structure\u201d. <\/p>\n

For families or patients whose cases were not included in the recent review, there was the option to request their case file and to ask for it to be reviewed, she said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0In north Kerry Camhs, children were far more likely to be medicated than receive talk therapyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Speaking on the same programme, Louise Rooney of Mental Health Reform described the report as shocking and highlighted the challenges facing the mental health system.<\/p>\n

Parents would be bringing their children to Camhs appointments today and they deserved to feel confident in the service they were accessing, she said, adding that confidence needed to be rebuilt in Camhs.<\/p>\n

Rooney, who is Mental Health Reform\u2019s policy and research manager, said it was seeking the inclusion of the statutory right to independent advocacy in the forthcoming Mental Health Bill and an independent complaints mechanism.<\/p>\n

The statutory right to independent advocacy was important, she said, as parents were not currently being informed of the side effects of medications being prescribed while children felt \u201cthey were not being listened to.\u201d<\/p>\n

With regards to the need for an independent complaints mechanism, she said that, as things stand, people were essentially complaining about the HSE to the HSE. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of the health service has apologised for failures in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[198841,127490,105,21110,45125,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-775330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs","9":"tag-children-s-health","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-hse","12":"tag-kerry","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116098549990442965","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}