Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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An acute paediatric complex pain management service operates from Children’s Health Ireland (CHI).

Officials from my Department have been in contact with CHI , who are aware that the current interim situation regarding CHI’s paediatric complex pain management service is a cause of much anxiety and upset for parents and children.

The Model of Care for Paediatric Anaesthesia (2015), developed by the National Clinical programme for Anaesthesia and endorsed by the Irish Paediatric Anaesthesia Network, provides guidelines for the organisational structure and best practice model for a paediatric pain management service. CHI has been in the process of developing the structure to deliver this model over the first quarter of this year.

CHI received funding towards a new service to address the needs of children, adolescents and their families living with complex pain in Ireland. This interdisciplinary service consists of a consultant with special interest in pain management (1 WTE), administration (1.2 WTE), clinical nurse specialist (1.0 WTE), advanced nurse practitioner (1.2WTE), occupational therapist (1.0 WTE), physiotherapist (1.0 WTE) and psychologist (1.0 WTE). CHI have advised that all posts are in place except for the consultant position. Unfortunately, recruitment for this post has so far been unsuccessful and is still ongoing. The post was advertised last year but did not attract candidates. It has now been redesigned to structure it slightly differently, and it’s hoped the way the post has been configured now will successfully attract suitable candidates. A locum consultant (0.5 WTE) has been hired on an interim basis until such time as the permanent consultant position is filled.

The CHI pain team works across all CHI sites. The new service will provide a comprehensive biopsychosocial approach to pain rehabilitation in keeping with evidence-based treatments that are recognised globally.

CHI have confirmed that their pain team have recently engaged with all service users who have been informed of the change of service model .They have also been sent a questionnaire which will assist the team to triage patients appropriately.

Meanwhile, CHI have confirmed that all service users have access to the Clinical Nurse Specialists and Advanced Nurse Practitioners who are available to address any urgent queries under the governance of the pain consultant. Contact details have been provided to service users by CHI.

As the issues raised by this Parliamentary Question with regard to breakdown by CHOs relate to operational issues, the HSE may be able to provide additional detail. However, members of the Oireachtas are advised that the HSE is currently unable to access the information to answer Parliamentary Questions due to the recent cyber-attack, which has required a temporary shut-down of HSE IT systems. The disruption to service is on-going, and the HSE is working hard to restore its IT capacity and resume normal services. Members of the Oireachtas will be advised as soon as the HSE is again in a position to provide responses to PQs and are encouraged to resubmit their Parliamentary Questions at that point.