Maureen received the award as the winner of the competition to design the front cover of the HRB report ‘Activities of Irish Psychiatric Units and Hospitals 2016‘. Maureen’s painting ‘Free as a bird’ becomes the first winner of Dr Dermot Walsh Memorial Award. Dr Walsh, a consultant psychiatrist, researcher, advisor to the Department of Health and former Inspector of mental hospitals, was instrumental in establishing the National Psychiatric In-patient Reporting System (NPIRS) back in 1963. The database provides detailed information on all admissions and discharges to inpatient psychiatric services in Ireland.

Data collected includes demographic data relating to each patient, such as gender, date of birth, marital status, address from which admitted and socio-economic group, along with clinical and diagnostic information, such as date of admission/discharge, legal category, order of admission, diagnosis on admission and discharge in accordance with the WHO International Classification of Diseases categories (ICD 10).

If you want to know more about how to enter next year’s competition, or if you are interested in accessing data for research purposes, you can contact the NPIRS team at npirs@hrb.ie