I’ve been thinking a lot about early intervention. The NHS states that it believes in early intervention for speech, language, and communication difficulties. However, our local NHS services in Hertfordshire and Essex will not accept referrals for children with speech and language difficulties until they are 2½ years old. This does not compute.
Early intervention means early intervention. It means that when a child has difficulties and parents have concerns about their communication development, they should be able to access support. This is not what’s happening locally.
Parents should be able to raise concerns that are evaluated by a health professional who can then make an informed decision about whether that child needs further assessment or intervention. For example, at this point the child could be placed on a waiting list and the family given advice.
However, our local NHS service providers report a 12-month (or longer) waiting list for initial assessment, followed by a further 9–12 months for intervention. Yet a child cannot be added to the waiting list until they reach 2½ years old.
This means that by refusing referrals until 2½, children are likely to wait from 2½ to 3½ for their initial assessment, and then wait another 9–12 months for intervention. How is this considered early intervention?
In practice, what these services are really saying is: “We don’t want to know about your difficulties yet. We don’t want you on our list because we prefer that our list appears shorter.” This is despite the fact that, once finally added, the child will wait another year for assessment and subsequent intervention.
Prohibiting referrals for preschool children is unethical.
This week alone, we have seen two children who have been severely let down by local speech therapy services:
One child’s referral was refused when they were in nursery. They have now been found to have a severe speech disorder in Reception, yet they are still not receiving NHS support.
Another child was seen by a health visitor who shared concerns but was unable to refer to speech and language therapy until the child reached 2½. That child is now three years old, on a waiting list, and has a severe speech sound disorder. They will start school next autumn without having received any NHS intervention due to the long waiting lists.
This is absolutely unethical and unacceptable.
