Information for Referrers
About Cluain Mhuire
Cluain Mhuire is a secondary mental health service which is funded by the HSE to assess and provide treatment to people suffering from mental ill-health that exceeds the capacity of primary care services. Cluain Mhuire accepts referrals from primary care teams, from hospital based services or from other community mental health services. In order to be eligible to attend the Cluain Mhuire Service a person must have their primary residence within the catchment area of the service *.
* This is a rough outline of the Cluain Mhuire catchment area. If in doubt please contact the service to check a specific address.
Before making a referral to the Cluain Mhuire Service please consider whether the needs of the individual could be met by primary care mental health services or might be better met by an alternative service such as an addiction or intellectual disability service.
Reasons for Referral
Consider referral in situations where there is concern about risks such as:
Suicide or serious self harm
Harm to others due to psychiatric illness
Severe self-neglect, accidental injury or exploitation as a result of psychiatric illness
Severe enduring psychiatric illness that needs ongoing monitoring and support from a secondary mental health service
Psychiatric illness not responding to standard treatment, despite adequate treatment (medical and/or psychosocial), for an adequate time period
The nature of the mental ill-health is unclear and needs more comprehensive evaluation
Content of Referrals
Referrals should include contact details, a description of the current problem, treatments tried to date, pertinent medical and psychiatric history, current social circumstances, and details of any concern over risk to self or others.
Time Frame for Dealing with Referrals
Emergency referrals- please contact Cluain Mhuire directly to discuss with the team on duty at 01-2172100 (outside normal working hours a doctor can make contact with the service on 01-2771400)
Urgent referrals will usually be offered an appointment within a few days
Routine referrals will usually be offered an appointment within 3-4 weeks
Following a Referral
Referrals are allocated to the team on call for the week or if the person has attended in the past to the team they attended before. Referrals are generally discussed and allocated at a weekly multidisciplinary team meeting. Additional information may be sought from the referrer or from the person referred before proceeding to arrange an assessment. If the multidisciplinary team feel that the needs of the person would be better met by an alternative service one of the team will telephone or write out to the referrer with advice. Once the referral is accepted an assessment appointment with information on the service is sent out with a copy going to the referrer. Initial assessment appointments may be with any member of the clinical team; this may be a psychiatrist, psychologist, mental health social worker, community mental health nurse or mental health occupational therapist.
Following assessment the presentation is usually discussed at the multidisciplinary team meeting and an initial care plan, of which the referrer will be advised, is formulated.