Senator Steve Pallett, who was the assistant minister with responsibility for mental-health issues before leaving the Council of Ministers last November, was speaking after the Health Department’s publication of a Quality and Improvement Report earlier this week.
The report outlined how the department was performing against targets in 36 different areas. A red rating, indicating a need for improvement, was issued for 16 of these sectors.
Mental-health topics were among the areas of concern, with the report stating that seven people under 18 had been admitted to the adult mental-health unit at Orchard House and that 43% of those referred to Jersey Talking Therapies had to wait longer than 18 weeks for their appointment.
Senator Pallett said he was very disappointed to learn of the report’s contents.
‘Anyone who has been into Orchard House, or looked at the facilities, would realise very quickly that it was not an environment for young people to be in and should be used only as a last resort,’ he said.
‘If under-18s are being admitted on numerous occasions, at what point does it become a crisis, with alternatives needing to be looked at?
‘There were improvements made at Orchard House but now it seems to be breaking down again, and we should all be worried if the Island isn’t coping with the extent of mental illness that we are seeing.’
Senator Pallett said Health Minister Richard Renouf needed to have a ‘serious look’ at the issue, adding that he believed a renewed review of mental-health services by the Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel was ‘desperately needed’.
Several Islanders had told him of their frustration about waiting times for talking therapy, Senator Pallett added.
‘There had been some really hard work to try to keep waiting times to an absolute minimum,’ he said.
‘To describe as disappointing the fact that someone in distress has to wait 18 weeks or longer to be seen about something that will deteriorate the longer it’s left is an understatement.’
The report said that a maximum of 5% of those referred to Jersey Talking Therapy should wait longer than 18 weeks for an appointment but that in June this year, 43.4% of those referred had to wait beyond that time.
Senator Pallett added that much of the issue related to Covid-19 and the effect the pandemic had had on staff, with some leaving the service, while challenges in recruiting replacements had left existing staff members under increased pressure.
Speaking earlier this week, the Health Minister described the report as a significant step forward in monitoring services and pledged that there would be regular reports on progress to the Health and Community Services board.
Deputy Renouf said: ‘Some indicators will show as amber or red. That need not create alarm but shows that we openly and transparently highlight the pressures faced by those services.’
