Introduction for 2017 Annual report

Service Delivery

St. Patrick’s Mental Health Services (SPMHS) is an independently governed, not-for-profit mental health service for service users from all over Ireland. SPMHS is comprised of two inpatient centres; St Patrick’s University Hospital (SPUH) and St Edmundsbury Hospital (SHE); the Willow Grove Adolescent centre and a number of Dean Clinics in the community.

The SPMHS range of services incorporates in-patient and day services and the Dean Clinic network, ensuring continuity of the most appropriate care and treatment for our service users on their journey to recovery.

We provide a confidential telephone and email service, and a helpline for 18-25 year olds, staffed by experienced mental health nurses 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, with an answering and call-back facility outside hours. 

Clinical Activity

Demand for services remained robust in 2017 reflecting the trust of service users in SPMHS. There were almost 3,000 admissions to our inpatient services over the course of the year, and in excess of 14,000 day care attendances. There were over 14,800 appointments at our Dean Clinics in 2017 — 13,337 adult appointments and 1,552 adolescent appointments.

SPMHS Inpatient Admission Rates 

The following analyses summarises inpatient admission information including gender ratios, age and length of stay distributions (LOS) across the hospital’s three approved centres; SPUH, SEH and WGAU for 2017.

The table below shows inpatient admission numbers and the percentage rates for male and female admissions. In 2017, 60.6% of admissions across all three approved centres were female, compared to 62.4% in 2016 and 60.4% in 2015.

The table below shows the average age of service users admitted across the three approved centres was 48.58 years in 2017. This compares to a figure of 50.45 years in 2016. The average age of adolescents admitted to WGAU was 15.49 years in 2017 as compared with 15.92 years in 2016. The average age of adults admitted to SEH was 55.51 years in 2017 and 54.87 years in 2016.  Finally, the average age of adults admitted to SPUH was 49 years in 2017 compared with 50.66 years in 2016.  

Dean Clinics

Adult Service

Adolescent Service

Expansion and review of recovery programmes

The organisation provides a wide range of inpatient and day service psychological and recovery programmes for young adults, depression management, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, psychiatry of old age, alcohol dependence, dual mood and addiction disorders, memory clinic and anxiety management. New psychotherapy interventions further developed during 2017 included a radical openness programme, compassion-focused therapy programme and Living Through Distress programme.

At St Patrick’s, our multidisciplinary services and programmes are continually reviewed, enhanced and expanded to ensure our service users can take advantage of the latest innovations and to keep in line with best practice at all times.

Compliance with Mental Health Commission Standards

The central focus of SPMHS has always been and continues to be the delivery of excellent care and treatment to those in need of mental health care.

In 2017, St Patrick’s continued its commitment to provide the highest quality care attainable and we are proud to have achieved a high level of compliance with the Mental Health Commission Inspection standards and regulations.