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Western Board 'on the cheap' speech therapy

Monday 14th March 2005

The Socialist Environmental Alliance welcomes the Children's Commissioner report into Speech and Language therapy across Northern Ireland and backs calls by Foyle Action Coalition for proper investment now in speech therapy for children in the Foyle Trust area.   SEA local election candidate in the Northland ward, Oisin Kehoe, claims that the report shows the Western HSS Board "is failing children in its area who need speech and language therapy".

"The 'post code lottery' identified by the Commissioner means that children in the Western Board area are considerably less likely to get speech therapy and, if they do get it, to get less, than a similar child in some of the other Board areas", says Oisin Kehoe.

"For example", he said, "in South and East Belfast Trust, there are 7.16 Whole Time Equivalent Speech and Language therapists for 8 special schools, but in Foyle Trust, only 1.7 for 5 special schools.

"The SEA is concerned that the statements of some other parties on this issue could have the effect of sectarianising it, by claiming that BT48, the cityside of Derry, has the worst provision", says the SEA candidate. "But we must not let this happen. The lack of speech therapy in Foyle Trust impacts on Protestant and Catholic children equally, BT47 as much as BT48.

"The real scandal is how the report shows that the Western Board is trying to provide speech and language therapy on the cheap", says Mr. Kehoe. "They are bringing in relatively large numbers of Speech and Language Therapy Assistants instead of fully trained, professional Speech Therapists.

"The Children's Commissioner report shows that the Western Board has 30.5 Speech Therapists for 86,000 children compared to 74 in EHSSB for 173,000 children ­ that means there are 40% more speech therapists per child in the Eastern Board. By contrast, the Western Board has 8.8 speech therapy Assistants, compared to the Eastern Board's 9.4 SLT Assistants ­ in other words, speech therapy is being provided on the cheap in Western Board area.

"This comes after last November's Amicus union report into the lower salaries being paid to speech therapists by Foyle Trust, which explains why it has been difficult to attract speech therapists to the area. Yet, the Commissioner's report suggests Foyle Trust still does not acknowledge this fact, as it continues to complain about difficulties in recruiting staff.

"With the Treasury now demanding 2.5% cuts in all public services, Foyle Trust is likely to plead poverty and say they cannot afford to pay speech therapists the same salaries as elsewhere. The SEA is clear", says Oisin Kehoe, "there is always enough money for war. The money must be found to provide adequate levels of professional speech therapy for our children."

Notes

The Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People's report, Overview of Speech and Language Therapy Provision in Northern Ireland 2004/2005 is available on www.niccy.org. It found that:

WHSS Board (86,000 children 0-18) has 30.5 SLTs, compared to 74 in EHSSB (173,000 children)

By contrast, Western Board has 8.8 S&L Therapy Assistants, compared to the Eastern Board's 9.4 SLT Assistants ­ in other words, speech therapy being provided on the cheap in Western Board area.

Over half of all the complaints about S&L therapy received by Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY) were from Foyle Trust area.

The number of Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) working in, for example, Special Schools, appears to vary across Trusts. In South & East HSS Trust there are 7.16 WTE SLTs for 8 Special Schools but only 4.94 for the same number of Special Schools in Homefirst Community Trust. For 5 Special Schools within Foyle Trust there are only 1.70 WTE SLTs.

The WHSSB recorded the highest number of formal complaints (31) about provision [more precisely lack of provision] of S&LT between 2002 and Dec 2004, although it has the smallest population of children of all the HSS Boards.

While waiting times for assessment in WHSSB is better than other areas, e.g. Newry and Mourne or Armagh &Dungannon have much longer waiting times for assessment, the average wait for actual THERAPY once assessment made is much worse in Western Board area than in any other part of the North.





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