Ms Clare Duffy:

We are struggling with something similar at the minute. We have lobbied for years for carers to be given the right to a caring needs assessment. That is now being piloted in community healthcare organisation, CHO, 2. The moral argument is about a right. For example, in the UK, there is a right to a care needs assessment but no right to the care it states a person needs. Is that morally wrong? The Disability Act is a little like that. There is a right to the assessment but no right thereafter to the necessary interventions and supports. Other jurisdictions are moving away from that, not specifically for autism but for carers. It is being recognised that it is immoral to do an assessment and then not give what is needed. In other European countries, such as Spain, and in parts of the UK, people are saying that they need to deliver and back it up. It is comparable to the EPSEN Act in that we did not do what we said we would do.