“It beggars belief what services we could have had for our children. The impact that money could have had on our lives is immeasurable.”

The frustration and anger felt by local families who have discovered that the Western Trust has underfunded adult learning disability services was palpable at a public meeting held on Tuesday night.

In recent weeks the Western Trust has come clean about an £8 million deficit in adult learning disability services “over the past couple of years”. Their admission came after the Health and Social care Board (HSCB) completed a review into underspend and found that in the 2013-2014 financial year, there was an underspend of £8 million in the Western Trust.

Carers groups from across the Western Trust area have come together under the banner of the Western Learning Disability Action Group (WLDAG) and have launched a campaign to get the £8 million reinstated. They suspect that there have been decades of underfunding totalling millions of pounds and they want compensation in order to redress the detrimental effect this underspend has had on respite services, day care, social work support, autism services and family support.

The WLDAG want the Trust to reveal the exact historical underspend so they can find a way forward – together. The group also wants an independent inquiry into how the underspend occurred.

The Trust has already promised the WLDAG that it will have them “at the top table” and will “work in partnership with families, carers and advocate groups to develop plans to address the funding gaps and to ensure they are involved in service planning and delivery going forward.” 

It is understood that the HSCB report says that resources were “misallocated”, with a £10 million overspend in older peoples’ services; a £4 million overspend in acute services; an £8 million underspend in adult learning disability; and up to £4 million underfunding in physical disability. Local carers want the Trust and the HSCB to publicise the report so they can “get the evidence out in the open”.

On Tuesday evening, a public meeting was attended by approximately 40 carers, three MLAs (Michelle Gildernew, Sean Lynch and Richie McPhillips) and five Councillors (Raymond Farrell, David Mahon, Keith Elliott, Debbie Coyle and John Feely). The meeting heard that deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has pledged his support to the WLDAG and has promised to “knock on the door” of the new Health Minister to deal with this issue. The new Health Minister has been announced as Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill. The group will now seek a meeting with First Minister Arlene Foster to request she takes a similar stance.

A representative of First Minister Arlene Foster attended the meeting and spoke on her behalf. He said: “I can assure you that we can facilitate meetings with the elected representatives. We need to take this forward together and I look forward to working with you. We have a new Programme for Government; can I suggest the group digest the Programme for Government and feed back your concerns.”

Sinn Féin MLA Michelle Gildernew told the meeting: “ We are here with a view to listening to what the families have to say. It sounds like there needs to be an audit – that could go some way to assessing the need.”
SDLP MLA Richie McPhillips said that he had attended a meeting with Trevor Millar on Tuesday, along with his party leader Colum Eastwood. “We put on the record our very strong frustration. We marked his card and told him that we expect monthly updates.”

Independent Councillor Raymond Farrell said that “the highlight” of his week is when he spends time with a young learning disabled man to give the boy’s mother a break. He said: “We have a battle on our hands. People can sometimes think it’s wrong to be angry but we should use our anger constructively.”

Caroline Wheeler, whose 32-year-old son Lee suffers from an extremely rare syndrome called Diploid Triploid Mosaicism, told the meeting that he was not diagnosed with autism until he made a trip to America last summer. She outlined the advanced facilities and care for people with learning disabilities in parts of the USA and said: “Lee’s case (a request for direct payments) was sitting on Trevor Millar’s desk for four months. I finally rang him and told him to clear his diary because I was bringing Lee into his office to leave him there for a week. I got my direct payment the following day. I was crawling on my hands and knees in desperation at that point. The Trust is too top heavy; we’ve lost the trust out of the Trust.”

Caroline Bogue, who has a 19-year-old daughter with autism said: “My fear is, with all of this coming to light, it’s going to be a one-day wonder; we cannot let this lie down.” She voiced her “disappointment” with local politicians for not pushing hard enough for the rights of disabled people.

Tony Brady, who has a 43-year-old learning disabled son, recalled how he had to “slog out” a care package for his son when he moved here from England. “It involved me threatening to sue just about everyone,” he said. Mr. Brady called for a finance monitoring body to examine the Trust’s budget.

Chair of the South West Carers Forum, Caroline Kelly concluded saying: “We intend to take the lead. We know what we want and we are not waiting any more.”