To ask the Minister of Health to detail the proportion of people referred for an adult mental health assessment who have been removed from waiting lists before being seen, including the reasons for removal, in the last five years.

The information requested is not held centrally and therefore cannot be provided in the format requested.

Referrals for adult mental health assessments, including the management of waiting lists and any decisions to remove individuals from those waiting lists, are managed locally by each HSC Trust in accordance with regional Integrated Elective Access Protocol (IEAP) guidance and relevant operational procedures.

Furthermore, following the implementation of the Encompass system across all HSC Trusts, historical waiting list data is not available in a format that would enable the information requested to be extracted and validated consistently across the region. As a result, my Department is unable to provide reliable figures on the number or proportion of individuals removed from adult mental health assessment waiting lists before being seen, or the reasons for their removal, for the period requested.