Professor Malcolm MacLachlan:

I thank Senator Seery Kearney. I agree with her in terms of the desirability of what she has described and that there is a problem. Effectively, that problem originates because we have had services which are hospital-based and other services which are community-based and there has not been a connection between the two. If a child is identified in hospital, the system should ensure that the child can be discharged from hospital and have immediate access to a community disability network team. We and people from the paediatric side, such as the paediatric neurodisability team, are working closely together to develop models of integrated care not just between these two programmes but also with community health officers, public health nurses, general practitioners and dieticians, who were mentioned earlier and are one type of a range of various specialties. There has definitely been a problem but we are addressing it now. The idea is that rather than having a hospital-based model of care and a community-based model of service, it is basically making those two models work together. We recognise there is a problem in that regard and we are doing something about it.