Health and Social Care Bill

I have added my name to one of the amendments in this group but support many of the others. The key issue is that children often need accurate diagnosis but do not get it. It is the way in which you detect learning difficulties of all sorts—sensory impairment and motor impairment. The need for a range of services integrated to support children is critical because as they grow up, unless their needs are addressed early they become greater; they do not decrease. I shall illustrate that. A little girl, whom I shall call Emily, is eight. She was born prematurely but by the time she is eight, having had a stormy neo-natal period, she has epilepsy, cerebral palsy and swallowing difficulties. She is wheelchair-dependent, partially sighted and has communication difficulties. For her ordinary care, like other children, she needs her GP, district nurse and health visitor. For her hydrocephalus she needs paediatric neurosurgery. For her complex epilepsy she needs paediatric neurology. She needs physiotherapy because of the cerebral palsy and cramps. She needs speech and language therapy to help her learn to swallow efficiently and occupational therapists who help her to manipulate her communication device through which she communicates with her family who love her dearly and want to do the best for her. That is one example and we have hundreds of children in our country who need integrated co-ordinated care. Perhaps Emily was lucky because she got the interventions that she needed and they were brought together. But, we also have a lot of children, as referred to in this debate, who are being missed on the way through because they do not have such clear-cut presentations. That is why, unless we use this as an opportunity to really change the way that we look after our children in health and social care in the broader context, we will be failing them.