Finian McGrath
Question:235 Mr. F. McGrath asked the Minister for Health and Children the reason children with disabilities have to wait 18 months for speech therapy; and his plans to improve the situation. [15287/02]
Vol. 553 No. 7
235 Mr. F. McGrath asked the Minister for Health and Children the reason children with disabilities have to wait 18 months for speech therapy; and his plans to improve the situation. [15287/02]
Additional funding has been made available annually in recent years to the health boards in respect of the provision of health related support services for children with an intellectual disability and those with autism. In addition to this ringfenced funding, children with disabilities would also have benefited from the additional therapy posts which have been put in place in services for persons with physical or sensory disabilities.
However, many health boards and specialist service providers have been experiencing difficulties in recruiting allied health professionals and specifically speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and psychologists. This is due primarily to the general shortage of available staff in these grades nationally. Health boards and agencies have been and are continuing to undertake intensive recruitment drives at home and abroad. The Northern Area Health Board has just undertaken a concerted overseas recruitment drive for speech and language therapists on behalf of all health boards.
Procedures are being streamlined to minimise the length of time taken to validate foreign qualifications consistent with the overreaching need to ensure that all therapists working in the health sector are appropriately trained and qualified. My Department has asked the health boards and the Eastern Regional Health Authority to explore other approaches which might result in the maintenance of an existing level of service provision or an enhancement in line with agreed service developments using the resources allocated to the services.