Ms Julie Ling:

Many families employ family members with their grants. Many voluntary bodies provide cash funding to parents and they effectively become the employer. They can go out and would often employ a neighbour or would sometimes pay a mother to officially care for the child. This goes back to the issue of finding somebody they can trust. That does happen for children who are very stable, have a life-limiting condition and are living at home. When parents need their break, they employ people locally, so care assistants do provide a lot of the care. However, that would not appear in any statistics or figures because it is often done through a cash grant from COPE, the Brothers of Charity or a similar organisation. It does happen.