Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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64. To ask the Minister for Health the number and cost of assessments of needs under the Disability Act 2005, between 2011 and 2015, that were contracted out to therapists in private practice and or carried out by agency staff; the reason HSE employed staff are not being used; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37966/16]

Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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In order to supplement the current service provided by the HSE and to reduce waiting times the HSE have contracted private therapists and agency staff to provide a service in identified areas. However, the information sought by the Deputy on the amount spent on commissioning therapists in private practice to undertake assessments under the assessment of need process is not routinely collated and aggregated into a statistical profile.

The HSE are currently reviewing costs for private therapy services expended via the nine CHO Areas and if the Deputy wishes to be advised of more up to date data in this area, we will endeavour to provide this detail at a later date. In the interim, a comprehensive data collection exercise was undertaken in 2013 to ascertain the number of private assessments (and associated costs) arranged during an 18 month period between 1 January 2012 and 30 June 2013. A total of 1,794 private assessments were commissioned at a total cost of €1,350,175.

The HSE endeavours to meet its legislative requirements for Assessment of Need reports and acknowledges the current challenges in achieving this. There were 3,318 Assessment of Need Reports completed in 2015. A total of 1,035 of these (31%) were completed within the timeframes set out in the Disability Act 2005. The length of time to complete the assessment of need will vary depending on the person’s complexity of need; however, the average duration of the assessment process per report completed in 2015 was 10.4 months.

The HSE continues to treat this issue as a priority and is putting in place a number of targeted initiatives in 2017 to improve the current timeframes. To this end, as part of its planning for 2017 there will be a number of specific actions including:

-prioritising assessments;

-holding additional clinics; and

-reconfiguring resources to target areas of greatest need.

Therapists in private practice have been contracted to conduct assessments, where appropriate. Guidance Notes have been issued to Assessment Officers for use when contracting private practitioners to undertake assessments under the Disability Act, to help ensure that children are being assessed in line with the provisions of the legislation and in line with the standards laid down by HIQA.