2. How is NHS Wales supporting families with disabled children? OQ60853

The operational responsibility for delivering the vital services supporting families with disabled children and their healthcare needs lies with NHS Wales. These services are provided by a range of healthcare professionals tailored to meet the complex health needs of children and young people.

Last November, Professor Luke Clements and Dr Ana Laura Aiello from Leeds University's School of Law published a research report on the prevalence and impact of allegations of fabricated or induced illness, or FII, which considered the prevalence and impact on families in England, Scotland and Wales of being accused of creating or exaggerating their child's difficulties, an extreme form of parent carer blame. Professor Clements previously worked at Cardiff University for 15 years.

The research indicates that wrongful allegations of FII are at least as prevalent in Wales as they are in England and Scotland. It also highlighted the devastating impact that an FII allegation can have on the whole family, including the children who are alleged to be in need of protection, and that this has been a particular concern for autistic parents and autistic children, with mothers of autistic children 100 times more likely to be investigated for FII by children's services.

How will the Welsh Government ensure that this report's messages are understood by local authority children's services, schools and NHS practitioners across Wales, when I continue to be contacted by autistic mothers of neurodiverse children in north-east Wales who have been, and continue to be, subject to FII allegations and threatened with safeguarding proceedings? 

Thanks very much. I'd be grateful if the Member would send me a copy of that report so that I can look at it in detail. I do think that what we have to consider when it comes to children is, always, how we put their safety and their equality first, and we have to look at it through the eyes of the child. So, that's the general approach that we take in the Welsh Government, but I will ask my officials to have a look at that report, just to see if there is anything in there we can follow up.