Dr. Louise Higgins:

With assessment of need, in certain situations, assessments completed privately are commissioned out, but the challenge is around governance issues when someone completes an assessment privately. Psychologists have not yet gone through the process of statutory registration with CORU, which speech and language therapists and occupational therapists have. It can be challenging for parents to identify who is qualified to do an assessment and who is not. PSI has a list of psychologists registered with it in terms of having a certain amount of experience and qualifications. It is challenging when families, as we know, are desperate to get assessments. Concerning assessments being accepted or not, that issue is not necessarily one that impacts access to services now because PDS removed the need for a diagnosis. There should be no barrier to people's access. We have heard of cases where there may be barriers in schools. A school might say that someone needs a more updated assessment, a fuller assessment or similar. We have heard of situations where that happened on the ground. It is a difficult one for parents, certainly.