Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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92. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide an update on his plans to tackle the understaffing of the CDNT services in CHO9; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7672/23]

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs) were established in Community Healthcare Organisation Dublin North City and County (CHO DNCC / CHO 9) in late September 2021.

CDNTs are experiencing challenges in the recruitment and retention of health and social care professionals.

Unfortunately, while funding has been allocated to fill vacancies, CHO DNCC is experiencing an average vacancy rate of 35%.

Despite the above, the CDNTs in CHO DNCC have increased their caseload by 654 children since reconfiguration.

HSE CHO DNCC Disability Services along with the lead agencies are running a targeted international recruitment campaign for therapists and interviews are ongoing. Concurrently, CHO DNCC have undertaken to increase administrative support to all the CDNTs, to enable existing clinical staff to devote more of their time directly to children and families.

Other initiatives include group work with children and families and ongoing local stakeholder engagement to discuss initiatives for service delivery in 2023 with children and families.

The HSE continues to source therapy assessments and interventions externally via private service providers, using private providers enhancing CDNT capacity to support increased therapy interventions.

Finally, to support retention of staff there is a significant programme of training being rolled out. This will see staff availing of a range of training, based on their personal and team training needs.