Dr. Sandra Cummings:

Care pathways are the route map patients will have from when they are diagnosed. What is the route they will take? Who are the people involved in assessing them? How often will the assessments take place? What other professional bodies will be involved? Who will provide educational support? It requires getting these people in touch with the patient and following them step by step so they are never left in the lurch.

We should know at any point in time what the visual acuity is like and what the heating ability is like. Where do we need to up the game? Do they need better hearing aids? Going into the classroom, do they need classroom support? There has to be a designated care pathway that this patient will take. That is their routine life. What are the stops along the way? Who will help them along the way? That has to be formalised because at the moment people are just veering and not coming back to the central pathway of the aim of how we need to help these people in every aspect of their lives.

For example, with the assessment of need, someone with a mild hearing loss cannot really get teaching support. However, there should be extra teacher support in the classroom for someone with a mild hearing loss and a visual impairment. That is one key aspect where this should be recognised as a single disability.

We do this all the time. A person with mild hearing loss will not receive extra support. Someone whose hearing is fine may be okay but if he or she has another disability, it will make things much more difficult in the classroom setting. The most important issue to recognise is that we can work out the care pathway this individual needs to ensure he or she does not get lost along the way.