Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help increase the number of (a) educational psychologists, (b) speech and language therapists and (c) occupational therapists working with school-age children in England.

Since 2020, the Department for Education (DfE) has increased the number of educational psychologist trainees that they fund from 160 per annum to over 200 per annum now.

They have invested £30 million to train three more cohorts of educational psychologist trainees for the 2020, 2021, and 2022 academic years, to reflect increased demand. The first cohort will enter the workforce in 2023 to provide crucial support to children and young people, schools, families, and local authorities.

On 29 March 2022, DfE announced a further investment of over £10 million to train over 200 more educational psychologists. These trainees will begin their courses in September 2023, and graduate in 2026.

To support the supply of more speech and language therapists and occupational therapists to the NHS, since September 2020 all eligible nursing, midwifery and allied health profession students have been able to apply for a non-repayable training grant of a minimum of £5,000 per academic year, with further financial support available for childcare, accommodation, and travel costs. It is the responsibility of individual employers, including schools and hospitals, to plan their staffing levels in line with their local service priorities.

The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision Green Paper sets out our proposal to commission analysis to ensure that the health needs of children and young people with SEND are supported through effective workforce planning. We propose to work with Health Education England, NHS England and the Department for Education to build on existing evidence and build a clearer picture of demand for support for children and young people with SEND from the therapy and diagnostic workforce.