Over 17,000 children awaiting first contact from short-staffed child disability teams

More than 8,000 children have been waiting for more than a year. File picture

More than 17,000 children across Ireland are still awaiting their first contact from a Child Disability Network Team (CDNT), according to the latest data.

CDNTs are teams of health and social care professionals, including nursing, occupational therapy, psychology, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, social work and others.

The CDNT scheme was rolled out by the HSE last year in a bid to provide a range of supports to children with complex needs and their families, in their respective regions. However, the latest HSE figures show that more than 17,000 children across Ireland were still waiting on initial contact from their CDNT around the end of May this year.

More than 8,000 had been waiting for more than a year. The figures were obtained by Labour TD Seán Sherlock, who said: “The longer such delays go on, the more likely other issues develop, necessitating further therapies within families, and the cycle of therapy delays continues. 

“We need to know if more admin or more therapists are needed in order to alleviate the blockages and delays facing families. We must target the funding and the personnel to these areas in order to support families.” 

A spokesperson for the HSE revealed that 28% of their staff positions within CDNTs are vacant, but added that recruitment efforts are ongoing.

“At this time, our staff and the families we support are coping with waiting times and staffing shortages which mean that often our service falls short of what people and families expect, and what our staff would want to deliver,” she said.

“Because of a very limited pool of qualified and experienced staff, many of our teams are working with fewer staff members than they need and particularly for more specialist staff such as psychology, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and dietetics.

“We have a disability service workforce of nearly 20,000 people nationwide and, thanks to investment, that workforce has grown by 1,350 extra staff since 2019.

“Our children’s disability teams have a vacancy rate of approximately 28% across the teams, but this may be higher or lower in different areas. We are working hard to recruit qualified staff into these vacancies.

“In our view, it is not acceptable to have to wait an extended time for either an assessment or for supports and therapies that would help your child and your family,” the spokesperson added.

The spokesperson stated the HSE is setting up independently facilitated, local family forums to seek input from families into how the HSE develops and improves services.

“We are sorry to those families who have had a poor experience in trying to access care and information, and will continue to work to make a difference, make changes and build a sustainable and better service for children.” 

The spokesperson also said that the HSE continues to run national recruitment campaigns for CDNT staff and is also exploring the possibility of expanding options to hire graduates from other countries and allowing this year’s health and social care graduates to commence as assistants until relevant registration has been secured.