I have a finance background with over 20 years’ experience working in education. I have seen first-hand the difficulties that young people with a disability face on a daily basis. Although I never knew Sylvia Hutchinson I know she had to fight to get help for her son, both as a child, and then as an adult. I view it as an honour to be custodian of the legacy she left to help future deafblind people.
As with Nigel’s comment, I am committed to ensuring funding is available to those who need to access services. We are aware that parents and carers have great difficulty with this for many reasons, hopefully we can finance referrals to specialists to speed up the process, as well as providing specialist equipment to service users which would otherwise be out of reach financially.