Asked by: Anneliese Midgley (Labour - Knowsley)
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 reduce waiting times for access to specialist speech and language therapy services in Knowsley constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust is committed to improving timely access to Knowsley Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy. There are currently 115 children and young people awaiting their first appointment in Knowsley. 94% of these are within the 18-week waiting time standard, with the average wait time approximately eight weeks.
The trust continues to work with partners to reduce waiting times with children and young people being prioritised for follow up appointments based on clinical need, the level of clinical risk and we ensure they are waiting safely. The trust will also continue to work in partnership with partners and families to meet the speech, language and communication needs of children and young people in the most appropriate setting to their therapy needs and speech therapy goals.
Written Evidence Mar. 17 2025
Inquiry: Solving the SEND CrisisFound: co-founder and Clinical Director of Mable Therapy, an innovative online speech and language therapy
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to increase recruitment in SEND services.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department knows that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) frequently require access to additional support from a broad specialist workforce across education, health and care, including speech and language therapy and educational psychologists.
This is why the department introduced the speech and language degree apprenticeship, which is now in its third year of delivery and offers an alternative pathway to the traditional degree route into a successful career as a speech and language therapist.
The department is working closely with NHS England to improve access to community health services, including speech and language therapy, for children and young people with SEND.
The department is also investing a further £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from 2024, in addition to the £10 million currently being invested in the training of over 200 educational psychologists, who began their training in September 2023.
Found: and young people with speech, language and communication needs in the criminal justice system and report
Jul. 08 2008
Source Page: The Bercow Report. A Review of Services for Children and Young People (0–19) with Speech, Language and Communication Needs. 140 p.Found: The Bercow Report A Review of Services for Children and Young People (0Œ19) with Speech, Language
Written Evidence Mar. 25 2025
Inquiry: Solving the SEND CrisisFound: education in relation to supporting children and young people’s speech, language and communication
Asked by: Caroline Voaden (Liberal Democrat - South Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to ensure all staff working with children and young people have the appropriate training to identify and support children with speech, language and communication challenges.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
All teachers are teachers of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). High quality teaching is central to ensuring that pupils with SEND are given the best possible opportunity to achieve in their education, and early language skills are vital to enable children to thrive in the early years and later in life, including for all aspects of later attainment in school.
This is why the department’s new combined Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF) contains significantly more content related to adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND, including content on supporting pupils’ oral language skills, and our Universal SEND Services training programme helps school and further education workforces to identify and meet the needs of children and young people with SEND earlier and more effectively.
The department is also co-funding the Early Language Support for Every Child and Partnerships programme with NHS England, which utilises pre-qualification speech and language therapy Support Assistants in early years and primary settings, and the Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools builds teacher and staff capacity to identify and meet the needs of neurodivergent children, including those with speech and language needs.
The department are continuing funding support for the 11,100 schools registered for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme. As of January 2024, we estimate that the programme has screened 650,000 children in the last four years and supported over 211,000 four and five year-olds since the pandemic.
To continue to build workforce capability, the department has recently commissioned Newcastle University and University College London to review the most effective tools, strategies and approaches for teachers and other relevant staff in mainstream settings to identify and support children and young people, including around speech, language and communication needs.
Written Evidence Nov. 19 2024
Committee: Public Accounts CommitteeFound: access to speech and language therapy for children and young people on SEN support may mean some
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made in reducing waiting times for (a) speech and language therapy services and (b) neurodevelopmental services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England are committed to reducing long waits and improving timely access to community health services. This includes improving access to Speech and Language Therapy through the Early Language and Support for Every Child (ELSEC) pathfinder project within the Department for Education’s existing £70 million Change Programme in partnership with NHS England. The ELSEC programme provides training and support to education settings to increase their ability to support speech, language, and communication development.
It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) services, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.
On 5 April 2023, NHS England published a national framework and operational guidance to help ICBs and the National Health Service to deliver improved outcomes for children, young people, and adults referred to an autism assessment service. The guidance also sets out what support should be available before an assessment and what support should follow a recent diagnosis of autism. In 2024/25, £4.3 million is available nationally to improve services for autistic children and young people, including autism assessment services.
In respect of ADHD, we are supporting a cross-sector taskforce that NHS England has launched into challenges in ADHD service provision and its impact on patient experience. The taskforce is bringing together expertise from across a broad range of sectors, including the National Health Service, education, and justice, to better understand the challenges affecting people with ADHD, including timely access to services and support.
Found: Speech and language therapy manages the risk of harm and reduces functional impact for people with speech