Sorry this is gonna be a long one......The children in our area need speech therapists. Guess what they are getting? Health Visitors having to do a speech and language screen at the 2 year check and support from their service to delay referral to speech and language.https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇🏼" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten (mittelheller Hautton)" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten (mittelheller Hautton)">

Like the Health Visitors don’t have enough to do with safeguarding the whole universal child health services. https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤷🏻‍♀️" title="Achselzuckende Frau (heller Hautton)" aria-label="Emoji: Achselzuckende Frau (heller Hautton)"> Like speech therapists are a last resort to support children SPEECH AND LANGUAGE!!

And there is no longer a working relationship between a named therapist for schools so they have no choice put to put in a referral and wait and wait.

I’m also concerned about children only being offered online assessment when it’s not clinically appropriate e.g. hearing impaired children. What about families who can’t access online support? They are left with nothing?

LSAs in schools are struggling to support children’s speech and language with minimal support in the form of generalised training. Can someone explain to me why we are trying to give our job to LSAs abs SLTAs? Why did we train?

Also, I’m wondering if Local Authorities are comfortable with funding the local NHS service which now gives them even less direct contact with the speech therapist who are able to help children in our area. Anyone else wondering the same?

Maybe this is why we are getting more school commissions! It seems schools are aware that speech and language is an education fundamental area where local NHS services are backing away from this.https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤔" title="Denkendes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Denkendes Gesicht"> Am I right @AmyDrewSLT

Let me make myself clear. The local NHS therapists are doing their best and are working in a system that doesn’t allow them to do what is clinically needed to support the children they trained to work with. This is not ok.