North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has said that too many people with learning disabilities in Wales are having to fight for the support and services they need to enable them to lead an ordinary life, and has urged the Welsh Government to take action.
Responding to yesterday’s Statement by the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on ‘The Learning Disability Improving Lives Programme’, Mr Isherwood, who is voluntary Chair of several Cross Party Groups, including those on Disability and on Autism, highlighted failures to ensure that those with a learning difficulty get the help and support they need.
He also questioned the Cabinet Secretary over the specific duty the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act places on local authorities to promote the involvement of people in the design and delivery of care and support services, contrasting this with the situation currently occurring in Wrexham where proposed changes within Wrexham Adult Learning and Disability Services to the Work Opportunities Projects in Wrexham threaten the jobs of around 100 people with learning difficulties.
He said:
“ I'm told by a number of families that Wrexham Adult Services are ‘reviewing’ the projects and, as part of the review, are running a ‘consultation’ period, but the terms ‘review’ and ‘consultation’ are misleading, because they suggest that Social Services are listening to what parents are saying and will take this into account before a decision is made, when the reality is that the decision has already been made. The Officer, they said, claimed that the review was being carried out to meet the criteria of the Social Services and Wellbeing Act, but they don't see how this can be the case.”
Referring to the continuing attainment gap for deaf learners highlighted by the National Deaf Children's Society, Mr Isherwood said:
“As they say, deafness isn't a learning difficulty, but deaf learners are being disabled by the continuing inequity in outcome. They're 26.2 per cent less likely to attain an A to C grade in English/Welsh language, Maths and Science, in combination, than the general school population. Of course, this has been going on now for as long as I've been in this place. And also, to their concern, although deaf children struggle to have their social care needs acknowledged and understood, and the Care and Support (Assessment) (Wales) Regulations 2015 say: 'A local authority must ensure that any person carrying out an assessment...has the skills, knowledge and competence to carry out the assessment in question', in the case of a deaf child, too often assessments are not informed by specialist knowledge of deaf children's social care needs.”
After hosting the annual Epilepsy Wales ‘Supporting People with Epilepsy in Wales’ Assembly event earlier, he also highlighted that one in five people with Epilepsy have a learning difficulty and spoke of the problems they are facing.
He said:
“Those with complex epilepsy have very common learning difficulty co-morbidity, but people with complex epilepsy are not being able to access treatment or services, such as, and particularly, the Keto Diet, even though this is a first-line treatment recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, and also recommended by NICE for children with epilepsy after unsuccessfully trying two first-line drugs.
“They raise concern about awareness and support services. They raise concern about mental health support services. They raise concern about further investigations when a diagnosis is not obvious, including the need for genetic tests, which, too often, as we heard from the people present, were not being offered.”
Mr Isherwood added: “The reality is that we have seen Statements about Learning Disability re-polished and re-announced many times by successive Welsh Government Ministers over successive Assembly terms, but my case load confirms that more and more people are falling into avoidable crisis”.