To ask the Minister of Health for an update on the £13 million spend on respite provision for children.

Mr Nesbitt

The funding is being spent on initiatives to improve family and community support services for children with disabilities, to increase short break provision and to expand the specialist care programme. It was never exclusively about short breaks. The trusts have increased contracts with voluntary and community providers, securing additional support for families through a broad range of service initiatives. I am conscious of the urgent focus on overnight short-break provision for children with disabilities. Over time, a pattern has emerged of children with disabilities being placed, long-term, in beds that were previously ring-fenced for short breaks. That trend is emblematic, I am afraid, of a failure to intervene in a way that supports children and their families closer to home. The range of services that the trusts have invested in are intended, in part, to redress the balance, developing services that support families and prevent further reliance on medium- and long-term residential placements. Short-break services for children with disabilities remain fragile. I will leave it there so that the Member can ask a supplementary question.

Many parents, not only those who participated in the 'Spotlight' programme but others, are in desperate need of and are crying out for respite provision. You have failed a lot of those parents. When will we see an increase in respite provision, so that families are not surrendering their children to long-term care by the state?

Mr Nesbitt

I have met the mothers from the 'Spotlight' programme on a number of occasions, and I can assure the Member that they are absolutely aware that the £13·1 million was not exclusively for short breaks. Indeed, I very recently spoke to a relative of one of those mums who was very complimentary about the progress that we have made. For example, in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust area, Willow Lodge opened as a residential children's home in July last year and now provides long-term placements for two children with learning disabilities. I believe that the Member understands that it is a complex game of chess, as it were, in that achieving success on this is not about one move; it is about moving boy A to residence B until girl C is moved to residence D. I have often compared it to a game of Jenga where the fear is that, if you pull out the wrong stick, the whole edifice will collapse.

It is complex, and I understand that it is frustrating, but we remain fully focused on the matter.

Mr Speaker

We move to topical questions.