Friday brief: six months plus waits for children with speech difficulties
Plus our regular news round up ahead of the weekend
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Children in Northants are having to wait longer than six months to be seen for speech and language therapy.
New figures for the North of the county show that since 2018 the time that children have had to wait for treatment has significantly increased. Five years ago more than 95 per cent of children in the county were seen by a speech and language therapist within the 18 week target set by the government. Today less than ten per cent in need of support are seen in that time.
Figures for the North show that currently there are 772 open cases for children who need speech therapy, figures for the West were not given in the report.
The issue was discussed by North Northamptonshire Council’s Executive Advisory panel for future communities this week with the council’s designated clinical lead for children and young people Rebecca Aker saying the increased numbers of children needing help was in part a consequence of the pandemic when many did not attend nursery and socialise as normal.
The meeting heard that the speech and language resource in Northamptonshire per 1000 children is the lowest in the region.
The issue has been mentioned regularly in the ICB’s board papers since last summer, with the long waits being put down to increased demand. The service is delivered by Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust (NHFT) which is rated as excellent by the Care Quality Commission.
A recovery plan has been put in place.
We asked NHFT the average wait for referral to treatment and they said it was 38 weeks. The longest wait by a child has been 79 weeks, although the trust said that this was due to cancellations of appointments.
The trust said it currently employs 33 staff in its speech and language team, which includes two administrators and has two vacancies.
A spokesperson for NHFT said:
“Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) are committed to working with system partners to respond to the challenges facing children’s speech and language therapy (SALT) services, include a large increase in our service case load alongside workforce pressures. These types of challenges are being seen by similar services across the country.
“As a Trust we have worked in partnership with NHS Northamptonshire ICB to deliver against the recovery action plan for the service. Positive progress against this plan has included:
the implementation of a prioritised recruitment process for speech and language therapists. This has led to the lowest vacancy rate for the service in several years
a focus on those children and young people waiting longest, which has seen the reduction of those waiting 18 weeks or more by 27% between April 2023 & March 2024
assessing speech and language pathway needs alongside system partners (NNC, WNC & ICB), to develop commissioning business cases with the aim to respond to the current needs of our community and increase specialist resource
enhancing support for those children & young people who do experience longer waits, including the introduction of carer/peer support workers. These workers bring their lived experience to help support those waiting and link them to further support if needed.
“While progress has been made, NHFT continue to support the recovery action plan, including the focus on those children and young people waiting longest to further reduce those waiting 18 weeks or more. We will support any joint and individual commissioning decisions and developments intended to address the needs of our community and increase specialist resource.”
A recent Ofsted report at which inspectors looked at the provision of special educational needs in the North of the county was damning and said families were being driven into crisis by lack of support.
It said the ICB and local council had failed to act quickly enough to reduce wait times:
“There has been a failure to address excessive waiting times for access to services, such as speech and language therapy, mental health services, and all aspects of the neurodevelopmental pathway. This negatively impacts on the lives of children and young people with SEND.”
News in brief
The new leader of West Northamptonshire Council cllr Adam Brown, has kept things much the same in his Conservative cabinet. The only change is to add in Cllr Rosie Herring to the mix, with Cllr Phil Larratt continuing in his highways role despite heavy criticism from residents about the poor state of the roads. Cllr Fiona Baker retains the children’s services portfolio, in spite of the growing anger by parents of special educational needs children, who say their children are being failed by the authority.
Cllr James Hill, who was one of only a handful to publicly criticise former leader Jonathan Nunn, has lost his assistant cabinet role. He was told by Cllr Brown that a minor reorganisation of the portfolios was behind his decision.
Last Friday, Cllr Nunn resigned the Tory whip after an intervention by South Northamptonshire MP Andrea Leadsom. Nunn’s supporter, Cllr Nigel Hinch has also stood down as chair of the Northampton South Conservative Association after a run in with Leadsom following an email she sent to all of the West Northants conservative councillors.
Corby is to receive a major economic boost, with sports giant Nike announcing it is setting up a new logistics hub.
As exclusively reported by the Northants Telegraph this week, the multinational will open a 43 acre hub at the Magna Park development close to Weldon. The opening date is set for 2027.
The facilities for workers will include a football pitch and running trail.
The cost of council-organised school transport for over-16s is set to rise by more than 60 per cent for some families across the county.
The current policy charges post-16 students at a cost of £600 for a yearly bus pass- the revised policy will see this jump to £1,000 come September 2024.
West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) overspent by £2.7m on their home-to-school transport service in 2023/24. The current policy has not been reviewed in over 10 years, during which the number of students receiving support has increased as well as inflationary costs.
Approving the new policy at the WNC cabinet meeting on Tuesday council leader Adam Brown said:
“There’s no escaping from the fact that this is horrid and it’s one of those nights when politics comes down to a bad choice or a worse choice. If not this, then what?
“Do we close libraries and museums? Do we reduce homelessness support? Do we engage in a round of mass redundancies? Anything we do to close a budget gap is going to have an effect on people’s lives.
“I don’t feel that an alternative has come forward that will both fill that gap and be a viable alternative.”
To be eligible for travel assistance under the policy, the student must live in West Northants and attend their nearest suitable school, college or training provider which is more than three miles away.
A consultation on the increased fees showed that 91 per cent of respondents disagreed with the new costs, expressing concerns over affordability.
Post-16 mainstream learners from low-income households will continue to receive a 50 per cent discount and therefore pay £500. A SEND pupil from a low-income household will also continue to receive transport free of charge.
For families with multiple children in post-16 education, the cost will be halved for any additional child.
Kim Stephenson, speaking on behalf of SEND group West Northamptonshire Voices in Partnership (WNVP) said: “This proposed hike comes as a shock and concern to our community. This oversight by the local authority will now result in families paying the price.
“It is unjust and unrealistic to suddenly impose such an excessive increase on families who rely on SEND transport services to ensure their children can access education that they legally must attend.
“These families are already facing numerous challenges and financial burdens in supporting their children with special needs. To burden them further with astronomical transport fees is simply unfair.”
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
The Labour group on North Northamptonshire Council have criticised comments made by the leader of the council about children in care.
At a meeting last week about the children’s trust, Cllr Jason Smithers questioned whether parents were placing children into care so the cost would be picked up by council.
The local BBC reported Cllr Jean Addison’s comments that Cllr Smithers words ‘show how little understanding he has of the stresses families are under’.
The cost of children’s placements in residential settings has put the trust almost £30m over budget - a cost which has to be paid by the two under pressure unitary councils. The councils have little of their own placements for children in care, which is why the trust is having to use private providers, with costs as high as several thousand per child per week.
As reported above by NN Journal...
"Cllr James Hill, who was one of only a handful to publicly criticise former leader Jonathan Nunn, has lost his assistant cabinet role. He was told by Cllr Brown that a minor reorganisation of the portfolios was behind his decision."
Blatantly obvious that Cllr Adam Brown is from the same stable of Conservatives as Jonathan Nunn.
'Orders for today...DO NOT CRITICISES YOUR FELLOW TORIES...even if they are women beaters'
Another PR disaster by the controlling Tories.
Either very thick or arrogant or maybe both?
This round up is a litany of failures of the Conservatives in power.
Decline, failures, missed opportunities and a complete lack of representation of the county by the leaders and MPs, all Conservatives to a Conservative government who saw them as willing voting fodder.
They also were able to try out far right privatisation of services and low tax which could not support even minimal standards.
Now we are facing soaring costs for services.
Can we hope that the present crop of Tory representatives will admit their guilt and stand aside in the forthcoming national and local elections?