Martin Daly on neurodiverse-friendly spaces in healthcare services
Martin Daly addressed accessibility for neurodiverse children in healthcare settings, stressing the need for quiet rooms, sensory rooms and better-designed waiting areas. He said a programme developed with Capital and Estates will roll out such facilities in larger primary care centres and called for improved access and responsiveness across services.
Programme rollout
The speaker said a piece of work done in a deputy's area, in consultation with Capital and Estates, is being rolled out with a strong focus on primary care centres. He noted that children's disability services already include quiet and sensory rooms and that similar facilities are intended for new and refurbished larger primary care centres.
Scope and limitations
He warned that these facilities will be provided primarily in bigger primary care centres rather than at every site. Capital and Estates will aim to include such rooms in new buildings and refurbishments and a programme of work is planned to implement them.
Families' experiences and service gaps
He recalled meeting six families with children who have additional special needs and complex medical needs and warned that bringing a distressed child into a busy emergency room can be traumatic. He also described cases in mental health services where adults have "fallen between stools" after missing appointments, including a person with autism and intellectual disability who was discharged from services and remains awaiting specialist assessment.
Access and responsiveness as priorities
He emphasised that services have become more flexible but that improving access and responsiveness remains a key priority. He argued for a "single door" and "no wrong door" approach so that, even if the perfect response is not available, services must provide a response and make the most effective use of current resources.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Thank you very much. I just want to come back to come to accessibility. One of the issues I hear from parents of children who are seeking services is that the environment sometimes is not very conducive, especially children with neurodiverse disorders. Are you satisfied that there is enough focus on having appropriate facilities, things like quiet rooms and that for children who are waiting and the waiting room designs and that appointments are made in such a way that they are not waiting in a room with a lot of... Ironically enough there was actually a really good piece of work done in Deputy Tools area specifically around creating kind of child friendly space, neurodiverse space and it was done in consultation with our colleagues in Capital and Estates. So in actual fact that that programme of work now is going to be rolled out, particularly I suppose with a very strong focus on our primary care centres. I think it would be safe to say, and Senator Rabbit has been in a number of our facilities, certainly our children's disability services are very neurodiverse friendly, they are specifically created on that purpose. They have quiet rooms, they have specific sensory rooms, the intention would be that certainly for all our primary care centres, we would have a similar kind of room or facility available and I certainly know in the context of our colleagues in Capital and Estates, they are certainly looking at as we develop or refurbish new facilities, that rooms like that will be available in all new buildings going forward and there will be a programme of work to do it. But it will only be for bigger centres, I think I need to be really clear, there won't be a one for everybody in the audience, it will be for the big primary care centres. I met six families last Friday week who had children with additional special needs but also complex medical needs and you know, bringing a child in distress into the emergency room for example, into a very busing which can be distressful for just someone who isn't living with those conditions, I think it is something we need to look at very clearly. And in terms of the barriers, we have seen in mental health services where adults have fallen between stools where they have been in an adult mental health service and didn't take up a couple of appointments and were dropped. And I mean dropped. One person was nine years, he lives with autism and he is an intellectual disability, dropped, he is not suitable for our service anymore, he was suitable for nine years but he is not suitable anymore and he is still waiting to be seen by a psychiatrist with intellectual disability and suffers from generalised anxiety disorder and his mother literally can't leave her house. I mean, in terms of making sure that we take full cognition of the difficulties parents face in terms of managing the 24-7 children with additional special needs and that, do you think the system is receptive enough to them and flexible enough for them, for their children I should say? I think it is far more flexible and so on than it was but I think one of the points we put down in my opening statement was improving access and responsiveness and I think that is one of the keys is that and I think it is one of the things the CEO in our organisation pushes very significantly and I remember going back to my own time as a director of disability and so on, you know you would have very significant cases and a school might send them home to mother and there was no one there, they couldn't look after them but you would be sending them home. So I think one of the issues for us as a service and I think that is the whole point of the single door and no wrong door is that you may not have the perfect response but you have a response and so there is an absolute onus on us to make a response and the most effective response we can within what we have available today. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
