Speech Therapy Services (Children)

Debate between Nick Smith and Paul Maynard

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for an interesting contribution, which highlights a problem that covers so many areas of medical training: what comes in at the beginning does not always come out at the end. We have to support those who are making a commitment to public service.

It is worth noting that speech and language therapists play an immensely important role across a wide range of areas. In the youth justice system, for example, the offenders are children, although we often do not think of them as such. The work that speech and language therapists do within young offender institutions is vital in reducing reoffending rates and crucial for improving life chances. The Children’s Communication Coalition made an interesting comment in its June 2010 report:

“The true costs of not supporting children with speech, language and communication needs—above and beyond those that are measurable in direct financial terms—are very great indeed. The personal and familial costs of poor educational attainment, descent into criminality and long-term exclusion from the mainstream are hugely significant and potentially corrosive to society at large. Poor educational outcomes often lead to poorly paid jobs or unemployment. In turn, this can lead to a perpetuation of the poverty trap and a vicious cycle of health problems and health inequalities”.

In a sense, that could sum up the entire debate in 30 seconds, and I could just sit down. It covers everything we need to be concerned about.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Does he agree that communication competency needs to be a key performance indicator, along with literacy and numeracy, in our schools?

[Paul Maynard]

I agree entirely. The hon. Gentleman has anticipated my next point. Speech and language therapists are there not just to help children, but to help the entire children’s work force understand that communication needs to be the golden thread running through everything they do. They need to be equipped to train staff, teachers and others who work with children, as well as the children themselves. I ask the Minister to confirm that she will do all she can to ensure that we recruit more speech and language therapists to meet the unmet needs that are out there.

The better communication action plan made a specific commitment to universal screening as part of the healthy child programme. Many major bodies, including the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, which I suspect has managed to get many supporters to attend the debate, wants to see that occur at age two and five, in advance of the reading assessment. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that that aspect of the action plan is taken into account?

Another important aspect that is often overlooked is that when we discuss children’s speech therapy we often think of those aspects that are what I describe as being high incidence, but low need. In other words, many children face communication difficulties, such as language delay, but their support needs are actually quite low. There is a much smaller group, which has much more complex needs, but the incidence of that need is relatively low. That poses a particular problem in commissioning. I wonder what the Minister’s views are on how we balance those two competing aspects, because where there is low incidence but high need, it is often more of a health intervention, rather than an educational intervention, that is required.