Healthcare professionals raise 'significant concerns' over new HSE policies on waiting times

Psychologists and therapists are warning that new procedures designed to cut waiting lists could result in the wrong diagnosis being issued.  Picture: PA

The HSE has clarified that areas with the lengthiest backlog of assessment of need cases will have until next June to clear them, even as psychologists and therapists prepare to tell an Oireachtas Committee that new procedures aimed at tackling waiting lists may result in some children getting the wrong diagnosis.

Mark Smyth, the President of the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI), will deliver a statement on behalf of the PSI, the Association of Occupational Therapists in Ireland (AOTI) and the Irish Association of Speech & Language Therapists (IASLT) to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children, Disability, Equality and Integration, warning that there are "significant concerns" over the HSE's new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) which aims to cut waiting times.