Our response to the Budget

We continue to be concerned about the need to invest in speech and language therapy, although we note the plans relating to Neighbourhood Health Centres and the wording around SEND in the context of SEND reform.

NHS Neighbourhood Health Centres could help to deliver earlier intervention and preventative care for people with communication and swallowing needs.  The whole neighbourhood health service will matter as well as the building, making full use of what speech and language therapists and other allied health professionals have to offer. It is also important to learn from existing excellence in community services.

None of that is possible, however, unless workforce planning for speech and language therapy, and the recruitment, retention, and continuing professional development of speech and language therapists, is improved, so that they can support the people they work with in the best possible and most impactful way. Nor is it possible unless the Government invests in speech and language therapy services.

As the Government implements its Budget decisions, we repeat our call for it to invest in speech and language therapy and to publish its Speech and Language Therapy Action Plan. This will help ensure that people with communication and/or swallowing needs and their families and carers are able to achieve their potential, live the lives they wish to live, and play their full role in society and the economy. It will also ensure that the barriers they face to doing so are removed.

These calls are supported by the Invest in SLT campaign team, made up of Mikey Akers, advocate, campaigner, and founder of Mikey’s Wish Foundation, parents Louisa Akers, Dave Harford, Georgia Leckie, Sharon Oliphant, and Pam Slater, Samantha Berry, an adult who has had speech and language therapy, speech and language therapists, Francesca Beard, Karen Massey, and Gillian Rudd, along with the RCSLT.