ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses chronologically starting from the point of leaving hospital and beginning care at home, covering the first two years of life and leading into the stage when health treatments should become better integrated with the education service in nursery schools. It shows parents’ unsatisfactory experiences of orthodox professional interventions. General practitioners have broad-based responsibility for diagnosis, treatment, cure, prevention and referral to specialists for all those, including disabled children, registered with their practice. The Occupational Therapy (OT )service, as defined by a health services careers document ‘is all about helping people to improve their quality of life by enabling them to overcome the effects of their disability as much as possible. Giving support and advice to families is combined with teaching new ways of managing personal care and home skills’. The outcomes of multidisciplinary assessments by NHS child development teams are usually treatment programmes for physiotherapy, OT and speech therapy, to be reviewed regularly.
