The Mental Health Commission has today published five inspection reports on approved inpatient mental health centres that show serious non-compliances on a number of grounds.

These include regulations on premises and staffing, as well as issues with regard to access to physical healthcare.

Among the reports released today is one on St Anne’s Unit at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar.

The reports released today focus on the Acute Mental Health Unit at Cork University Hospital (CUH), Cork City, St Anne’s Unit at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar, St Catherine's Ward at St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork City, Haywood Lodge, Haywood Road, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary and St Bridget’s Ward and St Marie Goretti’s Ward at the Cluain Lir Care Centre, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath.

When compared to the 2022 report, two of the five centres saw an increase in their compliance rates.

At St Catherine’s Ward, the compliance rate jumped from 66 to 77%, while there was a greater increase at St Marie Goretti’s Ward from 73 to 88%.

The rate decreased at St Anne’s Unit in Castlebar from 83 to 73%.

There were also decreases in the rates at both Cork University Hospital (79 to 58%), and Haywood Lodge (100 to 81%).

Good practice and quality initiatives that were observed during the inspections included the development and introduction of a physical restraint management booklet in January of this year, which came in line with the new MHC Code of Practice on the Use of Physical Restraint).

However, there were common themes of concern across all five centres, including two critical and two high risk non-compliances for the regulation on premises; two critical and one high risk non-compliance for the regulation on therapeutic services and programmes; and three high risk non-compliances for the regulation on staffing.