Health and care staff are not happy with the current provisions in the island for children with complex needs.

That was the admission from Health and Social Care Minister David Ashford, ahead of a conference due to take place this week to devise ways of plugging the gaps in services for children.

He said the workshop would address inequalities in the system.

’At the moment, in terms of the provision of the service, DHSC colleagues within the service are not happy with the way the provision is currently done,’ he said.

’There is anecdotal evidence that those who shout the loudest appear to have been the best recipients of ad hoc packages of care.

’What we need to do is standardise the process and level out the playing field, to ensure that all children that are in that position are seen appropriately.

’That is what the workshop will be doing.’

Mr Ashford was speaking in Tynwald last week, after he was questioned by Daphne Caine (Garff) as to whether he was satisfied with the health and social care provision for children with ’complex care requirements’.

The minister said he would never remain satisfied with any of the services in his department.

’I believe we should always be striving to improve our delivery of services on a daily basis,’ he said.

’We should never actually reach a point of just being adequate or being satisfied with what we have.’

He added: ’The provision for children with complex care requirements has been a matter that officers in the DHSC have discussed as recently as last month.

’Stakeholders from the children’s services teams across community care, the hospital, children and families, social care, Education and Rebecca House Hospice will come together on June 27 in a workshop to map the processes and interactions between teams providing services for children, with the aim of identifying gaps in services and to develop plans to address them.’

In response to a separate question from Mrs Caine, Mr Ashford revealed there were 822 people aged under 18 who were being treated by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

Mrs Caine described that figure as ’shocking’.

Mr Ashford said it was important to place some context around the issue.

’You do have those worst-case scenarios where you could be dealing with children that have had psychotic episodes, have suicidal intent, self-harm,’ he said.

’But also included within that process you do have other priority risks as well such as stress, bereavement within that service and behavioural problems.

’What is important is we treat each of those children as an individual -that we do not try to box them off and try and say they have got this one particular problem.’

Dr Alex Allinson (Ramsey) pointed out that the more serious cases would not have to wait the average time of 16 weeks for referrals.