38 U.S.C. § 7321 — Committee on Care of Severely Chronically Mentally Ill Veterans

(a) The Secretary^*, acting through the Under Secretary for Health, must establish in the Veterans Health Administration a Committee on Care of Severely Chronically Mentally Ill Veterans. The Under Secretary must appoint Department^* employees with expertise in caring for the chronically mentally ill to serve on the committee. (b) The committee must assess, and continually reassess, the Veterans Health Administration’s ability to effectively meet the treatment and rehabilitation needs of mentally ill veterans whose mental illness is severe and chronic and who are eligible for Department health care, including women veterans with those needs. In carrying out that responsibility, the committee must— (1) evaluate the care provided to those veterans through the Veterans Health Administration; (2) identify systemwide problems in caring for those veterans in Veterans Health Administration facilities; (3) identify specific Veterans Health Administration facilities where program enrichment is needed to improve treatment and rehabilitation of those veterans; and (4) identify model programs that the committee considers successful in treating and rehabilitating those veterans and that should be implemented more widely in or through Veterans Health Administration facilities. (c) The committee must— (1) advise the Under Secretary about developing policies for caring for and rehabilitating severely and chronically mentally ill veterans; and (2) make recommendations to the Under Secretary— (A) for improving programs of care for those veterans at specific facilities and throughout the Veterans Health Administration; (B) for establishing special education and training programs relevant to caring for those veterans for Veterans Health Administration employees; (C) about research needs and priorities relevant to caring for those veterans; and (D) about the appropriate allocation of resources for all those activities. (d) (1) Not later than April 1, 1997, the Secretary must submit to the Committees on Veterans’ Affairs of the Senate and House of Representatives a report on implementing this section. The report must include: (A) a list of the committee members; (B) the Under Secretary for Health’s assessment, after reviewing the committee’s initial findings, of the Veterans Health Administration’s ability, systemwide and facility by facility, to effectively meet the treatment and rehabilitation needs of severely and chronically mentally ill veterans eligible for Department care; (C) the committee’s plans for further assessments; (D) the committee’s findings and recommendations to the Under Secretary for Health and the Under Secretary’s views on those findings and recommendations; and (E) a description of the steps taken, plans made—including a timetable for carrying them out—and resources to be applied to improve the Veterans Health Administration’s ability to effectively meet those treatment and rehabilitation needs. (2) Not later than June 1 of each year through 2012, the Secretary must submit to those committees a report updating the reports submitted under this subsection before that report is submitted.