Having a break: good practice in short breaks for families with children who have complex health needs and disabilities

Developing short break services in the future

Many of the service providers and commissioners interviewed for this project had ideas and wish lists for improving and developing the services they can offer. These included:

• providing nursing care to accompany families on holiday, to enable the whole family to have a break together
• increasing the flexibility of funding arrangements to enable families to receive free care earlier on, not just at crisis points – this would help prevent the need for emergency care at a later date
• greater flexibility of funding arrangements to support joint activities for disabled children and their siblings – for example, combining PCT and local authority budgets to support family days out
• homework clubs for the siblings of disabled children
• under-fives groups for children with complex health needs, providing one-to-one support and access to nursing care.