Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to (a) health care and (b) social care for the families of disabled children.

Clinical commissioning groups must ensure that they secure health services to meet the needs of disabled children to a reasonable extent. The statutory framework introduced in the Children and Families Act 2014 requires clinical commissioning groups and local authorities to work together to support the needs of children with a special educational need and disability. Commissioners must publish a transparent ‘local offer’ of services available which has been developed for, and with, parents and young people. Since May 2016, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission have been inspecting local areas on their effectiveness in fulfilling their new duties for children and young people with special educational needs. NHS England is leading work to improve outcomes from commissioning of wheelchairs, including the National Wheelchair Data Collection, and the publication in July 2017 of a new service specification for wheelchair services.

Children’s social care is the responsibility of the Department for Education. All disabled children are regarded as children ‘in need’ under the Children Act 1989 and may receive social care from the local authority. The Children and Families Act 2014 placed a duty on local authorities to assess whether a parent carer in their area has needs for support. A parent carer is defined as a person aged 18 or over who provides or intends to provide care for a disabled child for whom they have parental responsibility. An assessment must have regard to the parent carer’s well-being, must consider whether it is appropriate for the parent carer to continue to provide care for the disabled child in light of the parent carer’s needs for support, other needs and wishes, and must consider whether the parent carer has needs for support.

Local authorities also provide short break services for disabled children, sometimes known as respite care, which also give their families and carers time to do normal things and take rest from care responsibilities. In April 2011, the Government introduced a statutory duty for all local authorities to provide a range of short breaks services, to consider carers’ needs in the design of these services and to publicise them clearly. While responsibility for funding short breaks rests with local authorities, the Department for Education has offered support and challenge and continues to consider how it can best support local authorities who are working to deliver sustainable short breaks provision.