Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many speech and language therapists are working in the public sector; and if he will estimate the number of such therapists working in the (a) private and (b) third sector.

The Department does not hold centrally the requested information.

However, the latest monthly workforce statistics for August 2014 published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre on 25 November showed that there were 6,207 full time equivalent speech and language therapists working in the National Health Service in England.

There are 13,952 speech and language therapists registered with the regulatory body Health and Care Professions Council.