Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, I thank the Deputy for raising the issue.

The Government acknowledges that challenges exist in access to and the provision of paediatric occupational therapy services in Wexford. The Government and the HSE are committed to improving access to these important services. The Minister has been advised by the HSE that in recent years the demand for paediatric occupational therapy services in Wexford has significantly increased. Along with the increased number of referrals, management in the HSE is reporting that more complex demands are being made on this service.

With regard to the numbers waiting to access paediatric occupational therapy services in Wexford, the HSE has advised that all applications for these services are prioritised upon receipt on the basis of clinical need. High-priority referrals are managed by the HSE in accordance with standard operating protocols with children of the highest clinical need being seen first.

A number of initiatives have been implemented by south east community healthcare, CHO 5, to improve access times to services in Wexford. These include an expanded occupational therapy service to provide assessment and two treatment sessions for school-age children. This is an expansion of the existing service. Additional clinics are also being provided. Under a new initiative, the Central Remedial Clinic is providing an outreach clinic and increased outpatient clinics are being offered to address the needs of the longest waiting.

CHO 5 is also increasing the number of group programmes on offer in the school-age service. A total of 110 children are currently being assessed and provided with group intervention in the first quarter of this year with the aim of providing intervention prior to entering the school-age service.

In order to address waiting times nationally and improve access to services, the Government has committed to increasing the number of occupational therapists in primary care. The HSE’s national service plan for 2019 contains the commitment to recruit 170 community and nursing therapy posts, including 40 additional occupational therapist posts. These additional occupational therapist posts will focus on addressing patients waiting over 52 weeks. The HSE anticipates that over 350,000 primary care occupational therapy patients will be treated in 2019.

The development of primary care is central to the Government’s objective to deliver a high-quality, integrated and cost-effective healthcare system. A Programme for a Partnership Government and Sláintecare commit to shifting the model of healthcare towards a more comprehensive and accessible primary care service in order to deliver better care close to home in communities across the country.

The HSE has also established service improvement groups to develop new standardised models of service provision to support the delivery of occupational therapy and other therapy services. The national service plan for 2019 commits to the implementation of the recommendations from these reviews on a phased basis within existing resources, which will help to address difficulties and pressure areas in therapy services.

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