"My son"

Dear Katt101,

Thank you for leaving this feedback and I am sorry that you and your son now have a longer journey to our office.

Since its setup in 2021, the Inishowen CAMHS team (which also covers patients who have a GP in Raphoe, Manor and Newtowncunnignham) have shared an office in Letterkenny. The office there was not big enough for the full team to see young people and their families. More importantly, most of our patients had to travel long distances to reach us (often well over an hour).

We were delighted recently to move out of the office in Letterkenny and into to a new state of the art building in Buncrana. We now have space for all of our clinicians, young people and families. We are also co-located with the other services that we work closely with.

Unfortunately, whatever location we chose would mean slightly longer journeys for some people. In our new location, the average travel time for our young people is now much shorter, as is the maximum distance that anyone has travel. We are really sorry that a small number of people, including yourself, will have a longer journey and we understand that this can cause real challenges for busy families.

Covering a rural area, where our families can be spread out and far from public transport, we are constantly trying to make the service more accessible. Where appropriate, we have the option of doing telephone or video appointments. Some of our staff have also taken on extended hours, to provide appointments that fit in better with family life. If you receive an appointment for a time that doesn't suit, then please get in touch as soon as possible and we will always do our best to reschedule to a time that suits better.

I realise that this response won't be entirely satisfactory, but I hope that it lets you see the compromise that we have tried to reach in choosing a location.

Regards,

Dr Tom Foley

Dear Katt101,

Thanks for replying.

I wish that we had enough staff to run offices in Buncrana and Letterkenny, but unfortunately we are a really small team and could not work effectively across two sites.

There is a separate service covering Letterkenny and other parts of North Donegal. The boundaries for these teams had to be set according to national guidance, so that they covered roughly equal populations. If more areas were transferred into the team covering Inishowen, then that team would become overloaded and the Inishowen Team would not be large enough to offer a full range of services.

The team boundaries have to be drawn somewhere. We have tried to chose the locations that are best for most patients, but there will always be a small number of people who have to travel slightly further as a result of being near the boundary. I can only apologise that this has been the case for you.

Regards,

Tom