13 January 2025
We are calling for greater recognition of, and investment in, the speech and language therapy workforce, which is essential to delivering the Government’s vision for the future of the NHS.
The Government’s 10-year health plan, which will be published later this year, focuses on three key shifts: moving more care from hospitals to communities, prioritising prevention over treatment, and making better use of technology.
In our submission to the national consultation, we highlighted the key challenges and enablers for achieving each of these shifts. Throughout our submission, we emphasized that these shifts must be underpinned by strong measures to tackle the NHS workforce challenges. The 10-year health plan must account for the significant unmet needs, the current workforce capacity, and its ability to deliver the necessary reforms over the next decade.
We also highlighted that speech and language therapy is central to achieving the three shifts. By improving access to care, we can better support individuals with communication and swallowing difficulties in the community, help them return to work, support children’s development and learning and improve wellbeing and public health outcomes.
We are now urging all speech and language therapists to look at the conversations between healthcare professionals taking place on the Change NHS platform and add the speech and language therapy viewpoint if you can. It is vital that the perspectives of speech and language therapists are reflected in the development of the plan, helping to shape the future of the NHS. This is an opportunity to highlight the essential role that speech and language therapists play in improving prevention, patient care and outcomes. The online platform remains open until Spring 2025.
A total of 156 members contributed their views to support our response. We would like to thank everyone who shared their thoughts and experiences, which have been instrumental in shaping our submission.
The 10-year health plan is informed by Lord Darzi’s independent review of the NHS in September 2024. The review highlighted the urgent need for reform within the NHS. The government aims to publish the final 10-year health plan in spring 2025.