Speech Therapy Services (Children)
Debate between Nick Smith and Sarah Teather(14 years ago)
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Sarah Teather
I shall give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland).
Sarah Teather
Health visitors are the key to picking up problems in the early years and making appropriate referrals. Some really interesting projects have been undertaken in Manchester, using community-based budgets; they linked health and education, realising that many children who fall behind when they get to nursery school have often missed health checks. Ways of sharing that data are important.
Nick Smith
I thank the Minister for giving way. I thank her also for confirming that the Government will not rip up plans introduced by the previous Government to take forward this important agenda. However, some of us are concerned that the new commissioning agenda for the national health service might mean that specialist services for speech and language therapy will not be commissioned by GP consortiums. Will the Minister confirm that special efforts will be made to ensure that GP consortiums are fully aware of this important service and that they continue to make it available?
Sarah Teather
I shall turn to commissioning in a moment. First, I want to say something about the school work force, a theme that was developed during the debate. It is vital that teachers and other members of the children’s work force have access to information, and that they have the opportunity for professional development in supporting children with special educational needs. Those on the front line are often the first to pick up problems, and they are vital in implementing whatever is suggested by the specialists.
One Member—I noted the point but not who raised it—spoke about the need for speech and language therapy to be well integrated into what happens in school. There are some good examples of that. Indeed, it is the kind of good practice that we want to build on through the Green Paper, with speech and language therapists training teachers to ensure that the therapists’ work continues in the classroom once the specialist help is over. That is vital. Progress has been made in recent years with the development of dedicated resources for teacher trainers and trainees, with specialist professional development for special educational needs co-ordinators and with online training material for school staff on a range of special educational needs, including specific materials on speech, language and communication needs for teachers and other staff.