Ms Vickie Kirkpatrick:

On the point of not having enough services, sometimes there is not a clear transition from primary care to the disability service because the progressing disability services for children and young people programme has not happened. There is an administrative issue as well.

That comes back to Ms Kenny's point about the specialist teams. As clinicians we play a continuous role. It is a dynamic process, working with people around their communication and language development, especially around their social and communication skills. For example, a lot of discussion during the earlier session concerned ASD. A cohort of experts analogous to a cancer expert, as Ms Kenny put it, does exist, but the wait times for their services are long.

The Disability Act 2005 created a mechanism to capture the need that was not there previously, the legal right to an AON. However, my understanding is that it was designed for complex disability, with the non-complex cases to be managed within primary care. Our models for intervention have evolved, developing a social strength-based aspect. We are always working towards people's strengths and their ability to achieve, not their impairments or their disability. Finding those strengths is so much a part of what we do to help children and families to meet their goals.