Disabled children ‘waiting 200 days to be assessed for social care support’
Sense said waiting for an assessment leaves families without appropriate support from their local authority.
Families with a disabled child are facing average waits of more than 200 days to get assessments for social care, according to research by a charity which said the system is “failing”.
Almost a fifth of families (17%) surveyed across the UK for national disability charity Sense said they had waited more than a year to be seen by children’s social services.
The charity said the current system sees parents having to “fight for the care their children deserve”.
Its polling, carried out by Censuswide, of 1,000 parents or carers of a disabled child in the UK in February and March this year suggested an average wait of around 210 days for an assessment by social services.
The charity, which said there are 1.8 million disabled children in the UK, said waiting for an assessment leaves families without appropriate support from their local authority.
Sense said there must be a new legal duty introduced to assess all disabled children “streamlining the process for families and ensuring all children get the best start in life”.
Sense chief executive James Watson-O’Neill, called for “urgent reform” to ensure all children in need get adequate support “without facing unacceptable delays”.
He said: “Access to high quality support can be life changing – it is the difference between a child feeling lonely and left behind, and a child having the support they need to grow, learn and thrive.
“But the social care system is failing disabled children and leaving families at breaking point. Parents shouldn’t have to fight for the care their children deserve. We need urgent reform to ensure all children get the support they need without facing unacceptable delays.
“Disabled children should not be bearing the brunt of a broken system. We’re calling on the Government to make disabled children a priority, by establishing a clear and consistent pathway to support and a national threshold to assess all disabled children.
“These must be backed by adequate funding and investment in local services.”
A Government spokesperson said: “This Government inherited a children’s social care system failing to meet the needs of this country’s most vulnerable children and in dire need of reform.
“As part of our Plan for Change, we’re ensuring thousands more families will have the support of a specialist worker to help them overcome challenges, including managing a child’s disabilities, by doubling council funding for early intervention from this year.
“We’re also thinking differently about what the Send system should look like, starting by investing £1 billion into Send and £740 million to encourage councils to create more specialist places in mainstream schools, paving the way for significant, long-term reform.”
