Ms Deirdre Kenny:

On the question of staff shortages versus skills shortages, it is probably a little bit of both. In addition to the time needed to recruit, we also have a number of staff on maternity leave, parental leave and sick leave. In many cases, these staff are not covered or may only be covered for a short period. When covered is provided, it is done by agency staff who would not be familiar with the area, the team or the children. While this cover is of some benefit, these staff need significant upskilling. When the team gets new permanent staff we upskill them as quickly as possible. Most areas have induction and supervision processes in place to provide this for new staff. In some areas the ratio of senior staff to staff grade employees across the health and social care professional, HSCP, structure is such the number of senior staff available to support these processes is limited. Senior staff generally have more experience and clinical skills whereas someone at staff grade could be a new graduate therapist. We have a supervision structure between senior staff and staff grade therapists across most of the HSCP structure.

The report I was referencing is a primary care speech and language therapy review. I understand it was completed in June 2017. Again, the IASLT was not involved in it. The HSE requested speech and language therapists in its organisation to examine this so we do not know what is in the report either. We know that the people who were involved in writing the report also want it to be published in order that we can look at it as a profession and see how we can make changes. That is at the level of primary care, which will obviously influence children who are accessing disability services. It is specific to primary care.