'Shortage of staff in some posts means services fall short'

Enable Ireland respond to waiting times for therapies

In response to our queries, the Celt received the following statement from Enable Ireland regarding waiting lists and times for therapies:

We acknowledge that it is very difficult for any family of a child waiting for services and we are doing everything we can to address staff shortages and waiting list times in our service.

There are over 640 children eligible for services with the Cavan Children’s Disability Network Team (CDNT). Our clinicians work on a priority basis where the children with the most urgent/significant risks are seen as a priority within the resources available.

There is currently a national shortage in healthcare staff and as with all teams and agencies this is making it harder for us to fill vacancies on our teams, including our team in Cavan. We continue to work with HSE on recruitment initiatives to attract and retain staff to work on our teams.

We understand parents’ frustration with services, and recruitment remains a significant challenge, we continue to pursue all options to encourage and support new staff joining the team. Each new staff member joining the team positively impacts waiting times for assessment and intervention. Three additional staff have joined the Cavan CDNT since February this year. We are continuing to build on this positive step, which will help improve services and wait times going forward.

Unfortunately, the current shortage of staff in some posts means services fall short of what families expect and what staff want to deliver and, as a result, children need to be waitlisted for both assessment and intervention.

Based on our current resources, the waiting time from receipt of referral to initial assessment is approximately 20 months. It is important to note that children on the waiting list are also offered and participate in individual and group intervention appointments while they are waiting to come into service. Our team continues to work creatively and use the limited resources available as effectively as possible. One such example is dedicated time to see babies under 18 months presenting with significant complex needs in eight weeks or less from receipt of referral.

The aim of parent education and training is to upskill and empower parents to be able to support their child's development and structure their environment. It is an important part of interventions provided and, as such, is included in the service statement. Phone calls to families longer than 15 minutes are also included in service statement as they usually contain advice or support, and have follow on actions and are classed as an intervention.

Enable Ireland cannot comment publicly on individual service users. We would encourage any family who has a query regarding their service statement to contact our service directly.