HSE executive brands wait times for assessment of need in Cork 'unacceptable' and pledges to reduce them 'significantly' in six months

The time children spend waiting for an assessment of need is “unacceptable” and will be “very significantly reduced over the next six months”, HSE South West regional executive officer Andy Phillips has said.

Mr Phillips was speaking after The Echo reported there were more than 1,200 children overdue for as assessment of need in Cork, with 77% of these waiting over six months.

Under the Disability Act, the HSE must start the assessment within three months of receiving an application and complete the assessment within a further three months.

According to figures provided to Labour Party TD Alan Kelly in response to a Dáil question, 1,206 people under the age of 18 in Cork are waiting for their assessment of need.

Taoiseach Mícheál Martin told The Echo that legislation would need to be changed in order to give greater flexibility to therapists, by reducing the time it takes to conduct an assessment.

In 2022, the High Court ruled that assessments of need should take more than 30 hours, resulting in the HSE changing its model of assessment.

In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Phillips — who was appointed to his role last year — said he would not specify explicit targets for the reduction of those waiting times, as the demand for assessments of need is growing.

He said: “We need to make very significant progress on that quickly because, of course, the rights to assessment of need in a timely way is enshrined in legislation, so I have a target that will meet those legislative requirements. I’ll be working very hard with people to make sure that we meet those targets.”

He pledged that the waiting time for an assessment of need will be “considerably less in six months than it is now” but the demand for the assessment has increased.

“This is one of our challenges,” Mr Phillips said.

“Whenever we talk about any waiting list, the demand increases rapidly, but what I am determined to do, is that the time taken for us to complete an assessment of need will be very significantly reduced over the next six months. It’s a key measure I have to get under control.

He said that he could not give a definitive date, but added: “I’m working with the stakeholders to find solutions and as soon as I’ve got those solutions, I will be able to tell you but I can’t tell you right now.

“I can tell you it’s a really significant challenge but I need to work with the people who know their business to understand how to improve that — all I can say is that it’s not acceptable to me, it’s not acceptable to the Government, it’s not acceptable to my bosses, it’s not acceptable to parents or children currently.

“The only other thing people need to know is that you don’t need an assessment of need to get your therapy, so I do need to make sure that happens — that people get their therapy.”

During the interview, Mr Phillips said one of the issues he was dealing with was helping to change the culture within HSE where, at any given time, 7% of the 20,000 workforce were absent on sick leave. His aim is to reduce that by half and is looking forward to the recruitment of more therapists through graduate recruitment programmes, as well as new training schemes promised in the Programme for Government.

JOB PROMISE

He acknowledged that while it would take three to four years for somebody to progress through their training course, there was an incentive: “We’re promising all of the graduates, all the therapy graduates, all psychology graduates, a job when they come off their training scheme. So they’ll have certainty of employment if they want to work for us.”

Nationally, over 15,000 children were waiting longer than six months for assessment by the end of March, and the HSE anticipates that by the end of this year there could be 25,000 assessments of need due for completion.

Speaking to The Echo, Taoiseach Mícheál Martin said the Government would bring forward legislation to give greater flexibility to therapists and to better enable intervention as well as assessment.

“The High Court decision needs to be followed up, in my view, with legislation. It can’t just be allowed [to] stand,” he said.

He added that because of that decision, one assessment could take up to 90 hours —something he said was “not tenable or sustainable either”.