9,000 disabled children left waiting

ALMOST 9,000 children with disabilities are overdue for an assessment of needs, new figures reveal.

By the end of last year, almost 8,900 children were classified as overdue for the assessment. Nearly 7,000 had been waiting for over three months, and the number has been rising since a High Court ruling, which said the HSE’s assessment must be more thorough.

An assessment of need identifies if a person has a disability, what health and education needs arise from that, and what services are required.

The figures were provided by the HSE to Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane, who said: ‘There is real anger out there. There were about 150 parents in a meeting recently, and others would come to our offices.

‘They are waiting for an assessment of needs and they can’t access services… It is very traumatic for parents when children are not given the early interventions that they need. It can be hard doing those meetings, as they are livid about the delays.’

He gave the example of speech and language therapy, which parents said could be extremely difficult to access. Also, in schools, he said priority would go to a child who had got an assessment. This could be to the detriment of another child, with even greater need, who could not obtain an assessment, perhaps because they could not afford to take the private route.

Progress was made in reducing the waiting list from 6,058 in the third quarter of 2020 down to 1,718 in the first quarter of 2022. However, in March 2022, the High Court found the HSE’s preliminary assessment approach did not meet the requirements of the Disability Act. Judge Siobhán Phelan said a ‘comprehensive, accurate and up-todate report’ was required by law.

The HSE said a new procedure for the assessments had been launched last July to address the lists, and €11million was being used to procure diagnostic assessments from the private sector.