Waiting Time for Professional Assessment of Persons with Disabilities

5 Assoc Prof Fatimah Lateef asked the Minister for Social and Family Development what are the current waiting times for children and adults with disabilities to get their assessments made by psychologists, speech therapists and other trained personnel.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social and Family Development (Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim) (for the Minister for Social and Family Development): Madam, the waiting times to have a disability diagnosed or assessed depend on a number of factors, including the purpose of the assessment. As at October 2015, for pre-schoolers aged six years and below, who have developmental problems, the median wait time for an appointment for an initial assessment by a doctor at KKH and NUH is between seven and 17 days. For children of schooling age, the corresponding median waiting time for an appointment at KKH, NUH and IMH is between six and 19 days. Compared to 2014, both figures have shown an improvement.

Some of the children need to be assessed for suitability for early intervention programmes. For example, the Development Support Programme (DSP) supports children with milder needs who are in mainstream preschools. The time taken for assessment for suitability for the DSP is below four weeks from the time of referral. The Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (EIPIC) serves preschoolers with more severe needs. The average time taken between referral and assessment for suitability was about three months in 2015.

Students in our mainstream schools can be referred for assessment conducted by MOE psychologists. Such referrals are prioritised jointly between the school and the MOE psychologist based on the urgency and severity of the child's needs. In 2015, the median time taken to complete a case assessment was about 2.5 months.

Adults with disabilities may also require assessments for suitability for a range of Government-funded programmes. The time taken from referral to assessment for day care services was around three months in 2015. For services, such as home-based care and drop-in services, the waiting time was between one and three months.

After assessment, some of the children and adults may have to find a place to receive the appropriate service. MSF is working with VWOs and other Government agencies to further improve both the waiting times for assessment, as well as the time for subsequent placements into the most suitable services. We will continue to expand the capacity and improve the delivery of services for both children and adults with disabilities. We are also working on manpower initiatives, such as developing hubs that employ psychologists and therapists so that their services, which are needed for assessments and intervention, can be rendered more efficiently.

Assoc Prof Fatimah Lateef (Marine Parade): I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for the response. I just have two points to raise. Firstly, several months ago, I was seeing parents who approached me because the waiting time was ranging from six months to over a year. But if the response is that the waiting times have improved, then I am heartened to hear so. I hope that we can continue to monitor this because, as you can imagine, the parents are anxious when it is an initial diagnosis that needs to be made, especially in the case of EIPIC for infants and children where I think they are really starting very early these days. The earlier the intervention starts, the better the success and outcomes.

Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim: Madam, I agree with Assoc Prof Fatimah's suggestion and I would like to assure her that we are looking at this trend, keeping a close eye on it. And particularly, for EIPIC, we are also increasing, the number of places available. Three new centres with about 400 places will be opened in the second half of the year. Following that, we have also planned for three other centres within the next three years. All in all, by 2018, we should be able to have 3,200 EIPIC places in Singapore.