Home > The emergence of a dual diagnosis pathway within a primary care setting in Cork, Ireland.

Connolly, John and McCarthy, Declan and Deady, Rick (2010) The emergence of a dual diagnosis pathway within a primary care setting in Cork, Ireland. Advances in Dual Diagnosis, 3, (3), pp. 29-33. https://doi.org/10.5042/add.2010.0748.

This article describes the recent integration of mental health and addiction services within a local health service in suburban Cork providing primary, community and continuing care. It details the start of the transformation. Once the clinicians had embraced the co-location of mental health and addiction services this afforded an opportunity to advance the assessment and treatment of dual diagnosis, and the progress to joint-working, assessment and intervention.

The authors mention the Irish Mental Health Act (2001), a Vision for Change (2006) and the Transformation Programme (2007-2010), with the latter outlining the radical reformation of health service delivery in Ireland with reference to integration of services, engagement of staff in facilitating change and their attitudes to service provision, and a remapping of staff and resources towards community settings with co-locations preferred. The National Drugs Strategy is quoted making reference to developing specialist expertise in both mental health and addiction. Three service models, serial, parallel and integrated are described and compared in use in other countries including USA, England, Scotland, Wales and Australia. These authors discuss the Irish experience of implementation by quoting verbatim four positive comments from clients, to complement supporting words from previously published literature on this topic. They make recommendations about dual diagnosis training, policy, procedure, ring-fenced funding, steering groups and research and development projects for the future.


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