HSE spends €700k on litigation related to children's assessment of need
The HSE spent over €700,000 in legal fees for litigation due to delayed completion of assessments of need for children with disabilities.
The Health Service Executive spent more than €700,000 in legal fees for litigation due to delayed completion of assessments of need for children with disabilities over the past three years.
Under the Disability Act 2005, the provision of an assessment must be commenced within three months of its initial referral, and completed within three months of commencement, with a further month to issue the report and service statement.
However, some 91% of children are not assessed within this statutory timeframe. The aim of an assessment is to determine which services are required to meet the needs associated with a child’s disability.
Figures obtained by the under Freedom of Information show there were 124 enforcement orders in the Circuit Court and 88 judicial reviews in the High Court between 2018 and 2020 relating to cases with one or more grounds for complaint under the Disability Act.
Some €198,555 was spent on solicitor fees and €502,260 was spent on legal counsel, amounting to a total of €700,815 across the three-year period, the HSE said.
The State Claims Agency (SCA), which manages claims on behalf of the HSE, said it has received 30 claims in relation to this matter. The claims, all of which were received in 2020, are “currently being managed” and no payments have been made to-date, a spokesman said.
Prior to the delegation of claims to the SCA, the HSE discharged claims for costs amounting to €100,103 in 2018.
There was a 9% increase in the number of children whose assessments were overdue for completion over the past year. In the final quarter of 2020, there were 5,078 assessments overdue, compared with 4,644 in the final quarter of the previous year.
The HSE also received 1,037 complaints in relation to the process last year, a slight decrease on the 1,153 complaints it received in the previous year.
Lorraine Dempsey, interim chief executive of Inclusion Ireland, a charity that represents people with intellectual disabilities, said there are “knock-on effects” of delayed assessments, particularly for education.
“If there is any delay in the assessment itself, and then the diagnosis, the child can’t apply for a special class setting or a special school setting,” Ms Dempsey said.
A spokeswoman for the HSE said it is introducing a number of “service improvements”, including the establishment of 91 children’s disability networks, comprised of specialist inter-disciplinary children’s disability network teams.
Some €7.8 million was also allocated through Slaintecare to address overdue assessments of need, the spokeswoman added.
