Cork addiction and mental health service on track to help 150 people in its first year

Some 150 people will have been seen in the first year of a landmark Cork city service to help people with both addiction and mental health problems, as a Cork TD says these people are likely to slip through the cracks without a specialised service.

The first dual diagnosis services in the country are two adult teams in Cork and Limerick, with the Blackpool-based Cork team established in July 2024.

A HSE spokesperson told The Echo the Cork team is on track to see its 150th patient in its first year. Led by a consultant psychiatrist, the service is located in a newly-refurbished space within an existing healthcare setting. Approximately 85% of the team is now in place, with recruitment ongoing to fill remaining posts, including a senior addiction counsellor.

The spokesperson said: “The team is highly responsive, with service users typically seen within days of referral. Early engagement data suggests that four out of five individuals referred to the service have attended appointments, reflecting strong service uptake.”

Vulnerable

David Lane, HSE South West general manager of social inclusion, said: “We’ve been working hard on this for 10 years. Within addiction services, we’ve had some programmes for people with more mild mental health problems, but we lacked the clinical input to treat those more severe cases like people who are bipolar or schizophrenic.

“Going back 10 years, these very vulnerable people could present to an addiction service and be told they couldn’t deal with their addiction until the mental health problems had been resolved, and vice versa at mental health services. You were just batting people back and forward — we needed this joined up approach to delivering care.

“I’m delighted with the massive progress that’s been made in the last year — we have a multidisciplinary team; psychology, addiction counselling, social work, occupational therapy.”

Big demand 

Mr Lane said there is “big demand” for the service already, and he hopes to see the programme extended further geographically and to adolescents: “I’m happy with the progress of the project and hopeful additional resources will come, because there’s still an awful lot of work to be done.”

Social Democrats TD for Cork East and former clinical psychologist Liam Quaide said there was a huge need for this type of service in Ireland: “It’s encouraging to hear that the HSE’s dual diagnosis team is up and running in Cork.

“From my own experience as a psychologist, people with co-occurring mental health and addiction issues can fall through the cracks of existing services, often with very poor outcomes."