Debate contribution: Respite Provision: South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust
Debate contribution by Mr Alan Chambers on .
- MLA
- Mr Alan Chambers
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 8 April 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Adjournment
- Heading
- Respite Provision: South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4920020
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I am sure that we all agree that adequate short-break services, whether day care or respite, are essential to the well-being of families and carers. Respite offers young people and children with learning disabilities and complex health needs a new setting to be supported in. Importantly, they also provide the families of a disabled child with a break from their dedicated caring responsibilities. From sitting on the Committee for Health, I am aware of the significantly increased demand for family support and short breaks across a wide range of services for children with disability. In the South Eastern Trust, in particular, a significant number of families are on the waiting list for overnight respite. Lindsay House was a lifeline for many families when it served as a short-stay facility, and I know that the trust is making progress on its remobilisation. Just as demand continues to increase, so do challenges in the provision of residential respite. Workforce pressures and the availability of beds have been greatly impacted in responding to the needs of children and young people who enter medium- to longer-term care. However, I am sure that those are challenges that the trust, the Department and the Minister are alert to. I applaud every family member and loved one who is involved in the care of a person with additional needs and the bravery of each family that welcomed the BBC into their home for the recent 'Spotlight' programme. The programme effectively and powerfully highlighted the real-life implications of the insufficient availability of short-break and residential provision in the Belfast Trust and South Eastern Trust. Through our television screens, we got only a glimpse of the challenges, but none of us could have been left untouched. The Minister, I am sure, had the same reaction when he watched the programme and listened to the families. I welcomed his swift response in committing additional funding for this new financial year and a proportional allocation for the last. I recall the Minister saying at the time that that would be a challenge to deliver but it was a challenge that he was prepared to undertake. The 'Spotlight' families and the countless others who were not broadcast but likely face the same challenges, deserve no less. I look forward to the Minister's response on the provision in the South Eastern Trust, but I do so in the knowledge that there is no solution that will fix the issue overnight. It will take commitment, but the Minister has already shown clearly that he wants the system to do better.
426 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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