Annual Report and Outcomes Report for 2025 published

Throughout 2025, we made progress on the objectives of our current strategy, The Future in Mind, enhancing our clinical services and infrastructure; promoting advocacy and research; and moving forward in partnership with the people who use our services.

Reflecting on the report’s findings, our Chief Executive Officer, Paul Gilligan, said: “In a world that may feel increasingly uncertain and turbulent, SPMHS remains committed to being a consistent and trusted source of care and support.”

You can read the full Annual Report here.

• Service delivery and development

  We offer care and treatment for service users from all over Ireland through a specialised range of integrated services. Demand for services was high in 2025, with 2,300 more occupied bed days and a 24.6% increase in referrals to our outpatient Dean Clinics compared to 2024.

  All three of our Mental Health Commission-approved centres received 100% compliance in their 2025 inspections.

  Technology-enabled care became further embedded within our services. Our homecare service is a core element of our offering, and our Homecare Hub nursing team continued to expand in 2025, contributing significantly to enhanced service delivery and continuity of care. Homecare made up 19,549 occupied days and represented 46% of activity in our Willow Grove Adolescent Unit in 2025. By the end of the year, 4,006 service users were signed up to Your Portal, our online platform for service users to access their personal health records.

  The development of our services continued through the project to transform the Historic Building of St Patrick’s University Hospital into a national centre for mentally healthy living, with Phase 1 beginning in February 2025. Plans for the development of a state-of-the-art hospital at our existing site in Lucan also progressed, with a number of meetings and consultations with key stakeholders taking place.

  Some other developments in the year included the launches of new treatments in response to clinical needs analysis, including a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia programme, and a Physical Health Monitoring Service clinic in our Dean Clinics.

• Advocacy and public education

  Educating the public on mental health and advocating for the rights of people experiencing mental health difficulties continued to be core priorities in 2025. During the year, we:

  • hosted 24 mental health promotion events
  • made 15 contributions or submissions to national and international consultations
  • ran 13 awareness-raising campaigns.

  Our Advocacy Strategy provides a clear framework for our advocacy activity, which is directed through our Advocacy Centre. A three-year plan for the Advocacy Centre was finalised in 2025. Significant research and programme development for an interactive Education Centre – part of the development of a national centre for mentally healthy living – also took place in 2025.

• Research and training

  We are committed to enhancing evidence-based understanding of mental health and treatment through a diverse range of research activity, led by our Academic Institute.

  31 peer-reviewed publications and 26 conference presentations by staff were recorded in 2025, marking our highest volume of research outputs on record in one year.

  The Academic Institute also launched SPIRE - St Patrick’s Institutional Repository – an online portal bringing together over 500 research-related items from SPMHS researchers over the last two decades; this is the first-of-its-kind mental health research portal in Ireland, and was accessed by users in 25 countries in 2025.

• Service user engagement

  As we continue to evolve and modernise, we rely on feedback and guidance from our service users, their families and carers more than ever.

  By the end of 2025, there were over 230 members of our three key service user engagement networks: the Service User and Supporters Council (SUAS), the Service User Advisory Network and the Family, Carers and Supporters Advisory Network. Throughout the year, they championed the enhancement of communication and accessibility, including updating key information resources and reviewing staff training videos. They also got involved in multiple engagement opportunities, including participating in staff recruitment panels, service planning workshops, research initiatives and more.

  SUAS reached its milestone 20th anniversary in 2025, with an event held in October 2025 to thank its members and celebrate two decades of SUAS’ role in improving care experiences, shaping staff learning, helping innovation in digital health and service development, and challenging stigma nationally.