The rising demand for speech therapy for children in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic has been tackled by an innovative partnership between the NHS and Forth Valley schools.
A report to Falkirk Council’ s Scrutiny Committee next week says this has delivered “radical and transformational changes” to local speech and language therapy services.
“At a national level there is a recognised increase in speech, language and communication support needs following the pandemic,” the report states.
Nationally, this has resulted in “more requests for help, bigger caseload sizes and longer waiting times”.
But the partnership between the three Forth Valley councils – Falkirk, Stirling and Clackmannanshire – and the local NHS has helped Forth Valley buck the trend.
There are estimated to be around 8,700 children and young people with a communication need living in Falkirk.
“Although the service in Falkirk is experiencing this increase in demand, the service is managing to reach to more children, earlier and quicker and has some of the lowest waiting times in Scotland,” the report to councillors reveals.
In Forth Valley, 90 per cent of children accessing help within 12 weeks from request being received.
According to the report, this is a “significant achievement as many areas across Scotland have waits of over one year for initial contact”.
One of the key changes of the redesign was to make it easier for parents and carers to ask for help directly.
The report suggests that earlier intervention is paying off and the growth in caseload that was experienced during the pandemic has now stabilised.
The Scrutiny Committee’s role is to make sure that Falkirk Council is spending public money on services that make a difference.
The report going to members on Tuesday (November 12) says that the project is delivering real value for money as the results have been achieved “without any additional resource or funding”.
Despite a 43 per cent increase in demand for individualised support across Forth Valley in the last six years “the service is reaching more children and young people, providing access to expertise earlier and enabling parents, education staff and the wider children’s workforce to feel confident in managing and improving communication skills”.
For the 2023/24 business year Falkirk council funded 42 per cent of the Speech and Language Therapy service (£597,984) with NHS Forth Valley funding the remaining 58 per cent.
The report concludes that this investment is vital.
It says: “The effects of lockdown and the pandemic are demonstrable as regards more children with reduced language skills in our schools and nurseries.
“Therefore, it is even more important that we utilise funding for this partnership service to continue to aid recovery for these vulnerable learners.”
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