
Therapeutic services such as speech and language therapy (SLT), occupational therapy and paediatric physiotherapy are key to meeting the care and support needs of children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND). The Children and Families Act and SEND Code of Practice - introduced in 2014 to improve outcomes for this group - are clear on the responsibility of commissioning organisations to develop a personalised offer that wraps around individual children's needs, and at the same time to commission services in partnership across health, social care and education to ensure strategic join-up.
This continuum of support, envisioned in legislation and policy, is often not the experience of children with SEND and their families. A fragmented provision landscape where therapy services are commissioned separately by schools, local authorities, clinical commissioning groups (CCG) and NHS England means that children can fall through the gaps before facing even greater challenges in transition to adult services.
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