Therapeutic Play and Children’s Healthcare Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Adam Dance
Main Page: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)Department Debates - View all Adam Dance's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Therapeutic Play and Children’s Healthcare
Adam Dance Excerpts(3 days, 5 hours ago)
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Mr Bailey
I thank the hon. Member for his powerful intervention. He is a massive champion for his local hospital. I agree that we should not rely simply on charity and that this issue should be looked at, which is the aim of the debate.
When the specialist invited Hari to play with her, Sarah told me that the change was immediate. She said:
“I saw my little Hari emerge again, play was bringing him back to us, in that dark tiny room I saw his light come back. This turning point became a moment that I held on to throughout the entirety of his childhood cancer journey.”
Sarah had to fight for that essential part of Hari’s care throughout the two and a half years of that journey. She understandably saw play as the most important therapeutic tool, but for many clinicians, medical treatments came first—even to the detriment of Hari’s mental health and wellbeing.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
Play therapy services in Yeovil that support adopted children and those in kinship care are struggling due to cuts to the adoption and special guardianship support fund. Services have been reduced and therapists like Lilly have gone months without being paid. Does the hon. Member agree that that situation is unacceptable, and that more needs to be done to ensure funding models for play therapy services are sustainable, ethical and child centred?
Mr Bailey
I thank the hon. Member for his powerful intervention. I hope that we hear from the Minister how such services can be sustained, given some of the shortfalls that have been described.
In reality, medicine and play are not in competition. When clinicians took playful approaches or when health play specialists were involved, Hari was far more willing to engage with difficult treatments, helping them to go much more smoothly. The culmination of that was an MRI scan that Hari did, fully awake, at four years old, avoiding the need for general anaesthetic. The health play specialist prepared Hari for this potentially scary and challenging ordeal by playing with a Lego scan machine, and playing the sound of an MRI while talking him through that process.