The mother of a disabled child has backed calls for the Government to plug a £1.5billion funding gap in disabled children’s services.

Rachel Wright, from Southend, is mum to 12-year-old Sam who has severe and complex cerebral palsy with life-limiting epilepsy.

They have been fighting to get support for Sam for years and the issue was featured in a BBC Panorama episode, Fighting for My Child, highlighting the crisis in disabled children’s services last night.

Rachel, 41, from Southchurch, said: “We love family life and doing normal things, but with Sam’s complex needs everything becomes more difficult and requires support to get the very basic things done.

“But often we feel like we are on our own, surviving with little Government support.

“There’s lots of schemes for disabled children but very few things that would suit Sam’s needs or give him one-to-one care with a carer he knows.

“Sam loves going bowling but he doesn’t always want to go with his parents.

“It’s good to do things on his own and we could get to do things that he can’t do like go on a bike ride.

“For him to go swimming without us would take two carers and there’s very few clubs out there with the facilities to suit him like a hoist or a specialist toilet.

“It’s very basic things – like recreation and making your own choices – which he is just unable to do while most other kids can.

“When you have a child who requires 24/7 care it becomes very difficult. We’re fortunate to be able to use hundreds of pounds of our own money to pay for additional support not provided by the local authority but most people are not in that position.

“This is my one and only life and my children’s one and only childhood. That’s why we are supporting the campaign calling for more Government money to be allocated to disabled children’s services.”

Economic research by the Disabled Children’s Partnership revealed the funding gap.

Vice chairman Richard Kramer, who is also the chief executive officer of Sense, said: “There are more than one million disabled children in the UK, 33 per cent more than a decade ago.

“Yet we know fewer disabled children than ever are getting support. Our research shows there are tens of thousands missing out on vital help which enables them to do things other children take for granted like eat, talk, have fun and attend school.

“Families are at their wits end are having to go to court to fight for vital support and dealing with a system with limited and dwindling resources. That’s why we are urgently calling on the Government to plug the gap.”