Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has for Public Health England to promote the importance of children’s speech, language and communication skills to educational providers.

Public Health England (PHE) is working in partnership with the Department for Education as part of the Social Mobility Action Plan for Education, ‘Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential’ to improve early language acquisition and reduce the word gap.

As part of this programme PHE will deliver training for health visitors on speech, language and communication needs. In addition, an early language assessment tool to support clinical decision making and improve early identification of children with speech and language delay at the two year universal health review is in development and will be available in spring 2020.

A model speech language and communication pathway for services for children aged zero to five built on the best evidence and experience of implementation in practice will be available by June 2019. This will encourage joint commissioning and service provision.