THREE Wilmslow mums who spoke out about their battles to get support for their autistic children believe more work is needed to improve the system.

Cheshire East Council, working in partnership with local NHS bodies, is currently preparing its written statement of action in response to a damning inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in March.

The inspectors found ‘serious weaknesses’ in the borough’s provision for children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) following their visit in March – in particular, the timeliness and quality of education, health and care (EHC) plans and the lack of an ‘effective pathway’ for youngsters with autism.

After the inspection report was released in May, Lauren Killilea, Saskia Howarth and Sarah Maughfling spoke out about their experiences – and they all see room for improvement in CEC’s action plan.

Lauren, whose son has autism, is ‘cautiously optimistic’ about attempts to improve EHC plans – but believes plans for a short-term increase in capacity will not be enough to resolve the problems CEC is looking to solve.

She said: “The average waiting time for EHCP needs assessment in May 2018 was over 38 weeks, so almost double the legal time limit.  A short-term increase in capacity is simply not going to cut it.

“A huge increase in capacity to undertake autism assessment and diagnosis is required within Eastern Cheshire CCG, in order to reduce waiting times to anything approaching the NICE guideline of three months.

“I also know from personal experience that the support given to families pre-diagnosis is wholly inadequate.

“The written statement should identify what the pre and post diagnosis support should look like, and set a target as to when this support will be achieved.”

Sarah, whose teenage son has autism, wants to see parents have a ‘bigger voice’ in the process and CEC to be more ambitious – but she is pleased with some of the steps being taken.

“The targets CEC has set itself to reduce delays in meeting the required EHC plan 20-week process are not ambitious enough,” she said.

“They only intend to achieve this in 40 per cent of cases by May 2019. Why not faster?

“I am pleased to see more educational psychologists are to be recruited, but I fear that more than two extra across Cheshire East will be needed.

“I’m also pleased to see that there are plans to identify schools failing to refer for EHC needs assessments. I hope parent views will be paramount in this process.”

One of CEC’s suggestions to improve provision for supporting SEND youngsters is to boost training for staff.

“I sincerely hope that the increased training plans include how to write meaningful EHC plans,” Sarah added.

Saskia, whose daughter has autism, set up the Wilmslow Special Needs Facebook page, where the three mums met.

“I think it’s appropriate that more training is to be provided for those writing the plans,” she said.

“I feel it’s also essential for the professionals involved – educational psychologists, speech and language therapists etc. – to be further trained about the content of the reports, particularly the need to be more specific in terms of provision required for the child

“I also think the local authority needs to listen to parents more effectively.

“There always seems to be such a battle to get what your child needs. It’s as though the local authority is all the time trying to save money at the child and family’s expense.”

The draft written statement will be considered by CEC’s health and wellbeing board next week.