To ask the Minister of Health whether he will request that Health and Social Care Trusts develop a joint-regional plan for respite and residential care services.

My Department’s strategic response to the increasing level of Children with Disability need across Northern Ireland has been set out through a regional Framework for Children with Disability. This has been partly progressed through the Regional Children’s Services Strategic Reform Programme, which my Department is leading on, and which was established in response to Professor Ray Jones’ Independent Review of Children’s Social Care Services. The regional needs of Children with Disability are being considered across specific workstreams focusing on Residential Care (Workstream 3), Fostering (Workstream 4), and Children with Disability (Workstream 5).

Focused Work in respect of the projected residential care need for Children with Disability across the five HSC Trusts, in addition to work regarding enhancing the Short Break provision (both residential & fostering) for Children with Disability across the five HSC Trusts is being completed through the Regional Social Care Reform Workstreams. This work remains ongoing, and it will form the basis for future commissioning of services and investment plans in the coming years.

Within the Reform Programme, we are looking carefully at the models of residential care, short breaks and fostering for children which are working well, to see how they could be replicated and expanded across Northern Ireland. The Strategic Reform Programme aims to ensure that we have the right services to meet the holistic needs of young people (including those with disability), now and in the future.