Consultant child and teenage psychiatrists must be properly recognised as the leader of their CAMHS teams to deliver adequate mental health services.

That’s according to the College of Psychiatrists Ireland.

Executive member of the faculty of child and adolescent psychiatry Dr Maeve Doyle told Newstalk Breakfast that other CAMHS team members are currently not required to report to the consultant psychiatrist.

"The way the structure is, it makes it quite difficult," she said.

"For example, all the other disciplines on the team, very few of them have specific contracts for child and adolescent psychiatry,

"Within those contracts there's no mention of reporting to the consultant child psychiatrist.

“So, the consultant child psychiatrist holds the responsibility for every single child and adolescent that is referred by the GPs.

“But often the other disciplines don’t recognise that they have a reporting relationship and report instead to heads of disciple outside the CAMHS team, who often themselves have no experience of child and adolescent mental health.”

Main image: Girl and psychotherapist in office near window. Image: Valerii Honcharuk / Alamy. 7 August 2019