Ms Angela O'Neill:

I want to clarify the position regarding 90 minutes versus 100 hours. The figure of 100 hours was quoted as the upper limit of the time taken to do assessments in one area.

We certainly cannot stand over that length of time because we do not have the resources to provide that level of assessment. As a public service, we have a duty of care to do the least harm and the most good for the most people. We must allocate our resources as equitably as possible. The figure of 90 minutes is a guide and every clinician uses his or her own clinical judgment to determine what is needed for a particular child. There is great flexibility within that, and we have already seen good examples of areas where the preliminary team assessment approach is being used very successfully.

Professor MacLachlan mentioned his webinar. Some examples were given on that webinar of teams which are using a preliminary team assessment approach, and using it remotely which is even more challenging in the context of Covid-19, and doing that very successfully. There are examples of where this approach can work very well. Our goal in trying to streamline the assessment is to ensure we are reaching as many children as possible and do not have a small number of children getting a Rolls-Royce type of service while others are waiting for years and not getting anything. As Deputy Ward said, some of those children are ageing out of services and we must move away from that kind of scenario.