The HSE is to establish a panel of private companies to carry out assessments of need in an effort to reduce the number of children and adolescents waiting longer than the legal time frame.
Under the Disability Act, assessments identify whether a person has a disability, the nature and extent of the disability, any health and education needs arising from that disability and what services are required to meet their needs.
The HSE said these assessments are not required to access health services, but many schools require one to be completed before children are provided supports.
Under the Act, the State has to carry out an assessment of need within six months of an application. However, about 90 per cent of applicants are not seen within this time frame.
RM Block
The HSE expects the number of children waiting longer than six months for assessment to reach almost 25,000 by the year’s end.
In an tender document, the HSE said it was “seeking qualified and experienced service providers to submit a proposal for inclusion on panels for the provision of autism diagnostic assessments for children and adolescents in Ireland”.
Providers must be confident they had “both the level of capacity and suitably qualified and experienced expertise within their organisation to deliver the number of assessments they are proposing in their submission”, the HSE said.
The executive is seeking providers in each of the six HSE regions.
HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster said meeting the increasing demand for assessments of need was “challenging”. He said there were 3,131 applications in the first quarter of the year, a 20 per cent year on year increase.
“To help address this we are putting in place a bespoke panel arrangement with suitable panel-approved providers. The panel will be in place for one year with the option to extend for a further year, subject to demand and budget approval,” he said.
“Every effort is being made to have the panel established as soon as possible so that more assessments can be made for the children on the waiting list.”
Mr Gloster has previously called for reform of the way in which assessments of need are conducted, saying the HSE “hasn’t a hope” of complying with the legal time frame.
Separately, the HSE has also issued a tender seeking applications for a company to conduct building repair and maintenance services in the Dublin Mid-Leinster region.
Documents for the tender, valued at €3.5 million, said the successful applicant would conduct “reactive repairs and building fabric maintenance on demand” for around 280 HSE-managed buildings over four years.
