RCGPNI: 'Almost half of NI GP appointments mental health related'

Doctors leaders in Northern Ireland are warning almost half of GP appointments are mental health related.

It comes after mental health awareness week, which aims to remove stigma and educate the public about emotional issues and high suicide rates here.

Grainne Doran is the chair of the Royal College of GPs in Northern Ireland:

"There certainly has been a rise and I think the figures are something like 40% of consultations within general practice will have a mental health issue attached to them."

During 2018, Downtown Cool FM launched a campaign to raise awareness and call for more investment in mental health services.

Invest in Life shared very personal stories of patients across the province struggling with emotional issues and also struggling to access treatment with long waiting lists for mental health services.

We revealed Northern Ireland has the highest suicide rates in the UK and in 2015 had the highest on record.

Many patients with mental health related problems present firstly to their family doctor, as a gateway to mental health support services.

It is up to the GP to signpost them to the most appropriate treatment option but how do doctors cope with the increasing demand?

Dr Doran told us GPs are hugely frustrated with current waiting lists:

"The difficulty in Northern Ireland is that mental health services have been under-invested for a significant amount of time and therefore the speed of pickup of those patients by mental health services is a challenge.

"That is where the issue lies in general practice, we may be able to identify the patient but we can't necessarily access the correct long-term treatment in a timely fashion."

Under transformation plans, health chiefs plan to reform doctor's surgeries here by introducing multi-disciplinary teams including counsellors.

A pilot 'social prescribing' scheme was also announced by the Department of Health recently offering art therapy and yoga in a bid to improve the public's overall health and well being.

The college believed these new measures will help tackle the problem eventually but will take some time to implement.

The organisation also revealed over two thirds of suicides in Northern Ireland are not known to mental health services.

This raises huge challenges in intercepting people in crisis and helping to signpost those in distress.

Dr Doran said it can be very difficult to spot early warning signs and it is a society-wide issue:

"There is no doubt that about 30% of suicides are amongst the community that are known to mental health services and the speed of support for those is an issue.

"But for the majority, it's actually more of a challenge than that because these are patients who will not necessarily have presented a mental health issue.

"They may have been to their GP for something else, it is being able to identify those, that's a significant challenge not just for general practitioners but for the community at large."

If you or anyone you know need help or support contact AWARE or LIFELINE or phone 0808 808 8000.