Agenda and draft minutes

None.

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of urgent business. (Late items will be considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items will be dealt with at item ?? below. New items of exempt business will be dealt with at item ?? below).

None received.

A member with a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered must disclose to that meeting the existence and nature of that interest at the commencement of that consideration, or when the interest becomes apparent.

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter if the interest is one which a member of the public, with knowledge of the relevant facts, would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member's judgement of the public interest.

There were no such declarations.

To approve the minutes of the meeting of 3 October 2006 (attached).

AGREED:

That the minutes of the meeting of 3 October 2006 be confirmed.

To obtain the views of relevant voluntary sector organisations and local patient representative organisations on:

§         The accessibility of primary healthcare for people with learning disabilities (LD) and, in particular, people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD).

§         How the health and well being of people with LD and PMLD could be improved.

The Panel received evidence from Alex Hendra from the Markfield Project, Richard Taylor from MENCAP and Helen Warner and Dolphi Burkens from the Patient and Public Involvement Forum for Haringey PCT. 

The Markfield Project

Ms.Hendra stated that her organisation was primarily concerned with the provision of leisure and recreation opportunities for people with learning difficulties and therefore most of her comments related to this rather then directly to health care.

There were some examples of good access to recreation and exercise for adults with learning disability (LD) but these were not necessarily accessible to people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD).  Some Markfield users had reported using leisure centres for regular exercise assisted by support from their key workers but people with more profound disabilities seemed to have less access to this kind of facility.

There were some specialist recreation services commissioned by the Learning Disabilities Partnership such as Markfield’s Art Engine and Markfield at Nite Projects but the number of places available for people with PMLD and high support needs was limited.  Day centres also provided a range of recreation activities for adults with LD.

In respect of children with LD, Markfield were able to give more detailed evidence on the lack of access to recreation and exercise as they had been commissioned to undertake an audit of supervised play provision in March 2006. This had found that, despite DDA requirements to make services accessible to disabled people, access to play and youth provision within the Borough was severely limited for children with disabilities.  Many providers, including six local authority run centres, were physically inaccessible to children with mobility difficulties. There was a severe shortage of play places for disabled children – for example, there were only enough inclusive places for half the number of children registered as disabled within the Borough. There was a particular shortage of term time places for disabled 3-12 year olds with a sum total of only 59 places available across the whole Borough.  When children were offered holiday play provision, it was for shorter amounts of time than for their non-disabled peers and term time provision was often only for one day per week, as opposed to the full time places offered to non-disabled children.

Markfield were commissioned by the Children’s Service to coordinate places for disabled children for the summer play scheme in 2006. In doing this, they discovered that the average amount of provision for a disabled child was two weeks across the summer holidays as opposed to five for non-disabled children. There was also a severe shortage of places: they were able to identify only 103 disabled children who received a play scheme service.  This was only just over half the number of places providers said they hoped to provide when questioned in the play audit in March 2006.  There were 112 disabled children identified as needing a play scheme service who were not allocated any provision at all over the summer.  39 of these were referred by Social  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

To consider progress with the review and future timetable (attached).

It was agreed that Children and Young People’s Service would be invited to come along to a future meeting of the Panel to respond to the issues raised by the Markfield Project concerning the availability of play provision for children with LD and PMLD.

There were no such items.