To ask the Minister of Health, pursuant to AQO 1880/22-27, to provide a breakdown of the £978,000 spent on family support including day short breaks, which details the amounts spent on (i) day short breaks, and (ii) other family supports, respectively.

In October 2024, I announced £13.1 million of recurrent funding with up to £2m funding available in year (2024/25), to improve services for Children with Disabilities.

Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts have confirmed that of the final £1.38m funding allocated in the 2024/25 year, this allowed regional expenditure in the order of £978,000 on Family Support including Day Short Breaks.

The following table outlines the breakdown of this £978,000 expenditure on family support including day short breaks, as advised by HSC Trusts.

*Rounded to nearest £000

In relation to the request to breakdown the funding spent on family support including day short breaks, detailing the amounts spent on (i) day short breaks, and (ii) other family supports, this information has been directly requested from HSC Trusts and a summary of each Trust response is noted below.

(i) Day Short Breaks

The Belfast HSC Trust has advised that the £190k of the 2024/25 investment the Trust has spent in relation to Family Support including Day Short Breaks, includes £69k for Day Short Breaks;

The South Eastern HSC Trust has spent a total of £282k from the 2024/25 investment in relation to Family Support including Day Short Breaks. The amount spent on Day Short Breaks was £105k;

The Southern HSC Trust has spent a total of £176k of the 2024/25 investment in relation to Family Support including Day Short Breaks. Of this, £61k was spent on Day Short breaks inclusive of enhanced community contracts, afterschool provision / summer / midterm / Christmas schemes and bespoke 1:1 packages;

The Western HSC Trust has spent a total of £330k of the 2024/25 investment in relation to Family Support including Day Short Breaks. The Western HSC Trust has informed my Department that the services delivered by the Children’s Disability Team provided a continuum of support to families and young people, and therefore it is not possible to categorise these into one theme only (e.g. some of the services provided by the community & voluntary sector cover both short breaks and family support elements within the one contract). The Western HSC Trust therefore is not able to provide the breakdown of amount spent on Family Support including Day Short Breaks disaggregated into the two categories requested.

(ii) With regard to “Other Family Supports”, Trusts have advised the following was expended in 2024/25:

Belfast HSC Trust, £121k;

South Eastern HSC Trust, £177k;

Southern HSC Trust has spent £115k on “Other Family Supports” being inclusive of additionality into Family Support Hubs to increase capacity to accept referrals to provide support, additional Self-Directed Support payments and enhanced family support community contracts.

As outlined in the response to part (i) – the Western HSC Trust have been unable to separate spend into “Day Short Breaks” and “Other Family Support” – with activities often falling into both categories. Therefore, the total combined spend for Family Support – including Day Short Breaks within the Western HSC Trust was £330k.