Speech Therapy Services (Children)

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on securing this debate. Debates that take place in Westminster Hall are often significant. This is one such debate and it deserves a huge audience. It is not only in Parliament that we do not get to debate certain topics that, despite being mainstream, never capture the headlines they deserve.

Sometimes, when we discuss policy, these sorts of issues do not have as high a profile as they should. We are talking about millions of children and adults who cannot communicate effectively. The service that we provide is often a Cinderella service in terms of the demand that it makes of the system, and the way in which the system responds with the money and resources that it receives. Whatever the size of the pot, and we may argue about that, the service does not get its fair share. That is because, for some reason or other, it does not make a loud enough noise, which is why the debate secured by the hon. Gentleman today is vital.

I want to say a couple of things and to raise a particular case that demonstrates some of the problems we have. The project to encourage and help children with their communication, referred to by the hon. Gentleman, is especially important. One of our problems is that sometimes we say, “We need to involve the family,” and of course that is important, but in some of those families the parents cannot communicate particularly well. Their vocabulary is limited.

I do not mean any disrespect to anyone and I am not decrying any particular families; I am making a statement of reality about our social situation. Many of us have experience of what we see in schools, and not just in schools: the limited amount of vocabulary that some children have at two, three, four or five, compared with others of the same age, is frankly astonishing. If we talk to some of the parents—do not get me wrong, they are loving parents, who care and so on—again, we find that the communication stimulus that many of us would recognise in our own homes is not there. Such things are important. I think one problem is the talk of involving the parents, which of course is crucial, when the parents have limited vocabulary to provide in support. We need to develop that.

I do not want to make a political point. We know that we are in difficult times and that there are differences between the parties about spending and so on, but I want to raise a particular case in my constituency, that of Dylan Scothern.

Dylan Scothern is six years old and he is autistic. He cannot communicate. The vocabulary he has now is thanks to the work of his loving parents. His mother, Rachel Scothern, has been at the forefront of the campaign about Dylan that I will come to in a moment. With the help of speech and language therapists, Dylan can communicate with about 20 words. Rachel has put something on Facebook in which they do “The wheels on the truck”—no, I mean, “The wheels on the bus go round and round”—he communicates with it better than I do. He has been brought to that point through the speech and language therapists.

Nottingham Community Health NHS Trust says that its funding for Dylan’s speech and language therapists will now stop because he has reached six years of age. The trust has changed its policy so that only children of five years and under will get speech and language therapy.

As I said, I do not want to make the issue political. I do not care what the budget is for Nottingham Community Health, because I am going back to the point I made before: why is it that such services are always the first that people look to when making savings? That is the importance of the debate secured by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys. There are easy hits when it comes to cutting money—often it is youth services, rather than services for pensioners—and here we have an example in health. Again, that is an important point made by the hon. Gentleman.

The Minister, who I know will take the issue forward, needs to talk to her colleagues in the Department of Health, because there is a young child at a school—he is going to school—who is having his speech and language therapy taken away, not because of the actions of her Department but because of the actions of the Department of Health through Nottingham Community Health.

The case simply has to be revisited, and I am using the debate to ask the Minister to do so. I know she will not know about the case—I do not expect her to know all the details, but I will write to her with them—but can she raise it with her Department of Health colleagues, Nottingham Community Health and others with responsibility? Can she say that in the debate all of us recognised the importance of speech and language therapy for some of the most difficult young people in terms of their learning challenges, and that it is simply not acceptable to cut speech and language therapy for an autistic child because he has reached the age of six? Frankly, that is not good enough. The policy needs to be changed and looked at again.

With that, I shall finish, but going back to the point I made at the beginning. Let the debate be a clarion call not just for the case of Dylan and Rachel Scothern, a family who live in my constituency, but to all of those who provide such services, whether through health or education. We need to recognise their importance and understand that, simply because they are not necessarily front-page news all of the time, they are of fundamental and significant importance to countless families and young people up and down this country. If we mean to provide equal opportunities, we should ensure that those people receive those services, which should not be the first port of call for people with difficult budget decisions to make.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Teather]

We need a mix; that is why I said that speech and language therapists can often offer good professional advice to teachers, who are then able to do some of that work during the week. The number of speech and language therapists is rising consistently. The question of whether we have enough depends on commissioning, and the way in which those therapists are employed. The White Paper on schools and the special educational needs Green Paper will set out plans for developing the knowledge, understanding and skills of the children’s work force and will specifically address continuing professional development.

A number of Members asked about commissioning. I realise that we need to be much better at integrating the commissioning of services for children with special educational needs, as in many other areas. As I said earlier, I hope that the rapid change experienced in many areas will provide us with the opportunity to do much better. We are creating more diverse school systems with more freedom for schools to innovate; and the NHS White Paper focuses on creating locally based opportunities to improve patient care.

Improving outcomes is exactly what Mr Speaker wanted to achieve for children with such difficulties through his review. The challenge is to design future arrangements that work much better together and that focus specifically on the needs of children and families. I am working closely with colleagues at the Department of Health on all these matters. I am determined to ensure that we are better able to streamline the assessment process.

[Vernon Coaker]

rose—

[Sarah Teather]

Only three minutes remain, and people are already arriving for the next debate. I still have five pages of notes, so I shall end up rushing.

The hon. Member for Gedling mentioned a constituent of his, and I will ensure that excerpts from his speech are passed to Ministers at the Department of Health so that the matter is drawn to their attention. Things falling between Departments is exactly what we want to address in the Green Paper.

There are a couple of other points that I shall not manage to answer, but the hon. Member for North West Durham raised the question of the differences in commissioning for high need with low incidence and low need with high incidence. I know that the Department of Health is aware of the communication champion’s views on commissioning, and those views will be taken into account in designing the system.

I shall finish with a few words about the Green Paper.