Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 14 December 2023
73. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the status of the work under way by the national disability service and HSE procurement to develop a tender process and service specification for the delivery of assessments of need from private providers to deal with the long waiting lists; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55516/23]
View answerI would like an update on the work that is under way by the national disability service and HSE procurement to develop a tender process and service specifications for delivery of assessments of needs from private providers to deal with the long backlog in assessments of needs.
The Government is fully aware of the importance of providing assessments under the assessment of need process as set out by the Disability Act of 2005. I affirm my commitment to working to address these waiting lists. I also acknowledge that there are significant challenges that families are experiencing as a result of the current backlog, not just in Deputy Smyth's area but throughout the country.
The High Court judgment delivered in March 2022 directed that the PTA approach did not fulfil the requirements of the assessment of need, and this has further compounded the situation families awaiting AON are facing. To address these issues, an allocation of funding in both budget 2023 and budget 2024 was provided to facilitate CHOs to procure diagnostic ASD assessments through the private sector. The total amount involved in that was approximately €16 million.
Private providers are currently contracted by the HSE and lead agencies to provide assessments, ensuring the contracted providers are appropriately qualified and that any assessments or interventions are provided in line with the appropriate standards. At present, the HSE is working to finalise a procurement process for additional assessments and is in the evaluation stage of that work. As the Deputy will appreciate, I will not be able to speak about anything to do with that process due to commercial sensitivities.
Both my Department and the HSE acknowledge there is more work to be done to address the challenges facing the AON waiting lists and I am totally committed to resolving them. The roadmap for service improvement launched last October will examine the matter of AON from a broader perspective, with the further development of solutions to the challenges of AON taking account of all stakeholders.
I thank the Minister of State. As she said, we need to see this tender process. I believe we need to see the service specification for the delivery of assessments of needs. It needs to be rushed. The long waiting lists for assessment of needs, which is not a new phenomenon, should be reason enough for the national disability service and the HSE procurement team to speed up their delivery of this to ensure the long waiting lists can be tackled. I have huge issues with the staffing and so on in Carlow CDNT, which I have raised with the HSE and the Minister of State, and I thank her. I note that, at the moment, there are approximately 50 children, or maybe more, in Carlow alone waiting for their assessment. There are children who are about to go to school without having seen a therapist. That is unacceptable. I ask the Minister of State that we rush this. I am really concerned. Families are coming to my clinic every day and they are tormented. While I know the Minister of State is fully committed, as are the other Ministers, something really needs to be done urgently on this.
That is why funding has been secured in budget after budget to ensure we can address it. Only yesterday, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, the Department and I had a meeting about AONs to ensure it is a priority, a focus and that it is actually getting the attention it requires. At the back of all of this, it is important to understand there are only so many therapists in the country. That is our problem. We are trying to fill our CDNTs. We are trying to ensure we are having assessments and that we are also delivering on interventions. It is that balance we are trying to create. From what I have seen from the procurements that have come back, there is a capacity issue in the private market as well. We do not have the desired capacity from what has come back in. It is all about people and ensuring we use the resources we have best. That is the operational piece the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman and I have tasked the HSE with, addressing how it can meet the balancing needs of intervention and assessment.
Is the Minister of State looking at plans to explore an international procurement process in parallel with the one being developed nationally? This should not be overlooked as a way to help tackle the long waiting lists. Going back to the CDNT in Carlow, we have a facility on Barrack Street in Carlow and only one room is being used at the moment. I know the staff there are doing their best and that they are understaffed but we have a beautiful facility and only one room is being used because there is no one else to fill the rest of them. There are no staff. These are huge issues across the country and I see it daily. The urgency of this really needs to be looked at. I know the Minister of State is aware of it.
I certainly will look at that CDNT in Carlow the Deputy identified with one room being used. I have to question how many staff are on that team and how it is being operationalised. I will go back again to what we set up within the Department since I transferred over. We have put a specific workforce planning group in place in the Department where we are looking at all available options and not reinventing too many of the wheels. I see that Ms Edel Quinn in CHO 1 has a complete campaign around coming home for Christmas. That is a really positive campaign she is running in Donegal. We are also looking at how we can entice and attract people who are coming home for Christmas nationally and at how the HSE is advertising. We do not have an embargo and that is one thing that the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman and I ensured we would not have. We do not have an embargo on recruitment. There is a risk assessment for management and admin but there is no recruitment embargo on any of the clinical posts we will be recruiting for.
