Every Child A Talker (ECAT) will be sustained and rolled out to further settings in 2011/12. The programme has significa
Case study: Worcestershire County Council and NHS Worcestershire From April 1st 2011, Worcestershire County Council and NHS Worcestershire have been jointly commissioning children’s health services from a pooled budget. This was prioritised by the Joint Commissioning Unit in its 2009 review and speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) have been at the forefront. Throughout the SLCN review in 2010/11, the local authority and the NHS have shared resources at all levels, and worked from a strategic to an operational level to inform the future commissioning of services. They have identified the requirements of the specialist and wider workforce in meeting the needs of children and young people with SLCN, and this has included a wide range of services such as speech and language therapy, specialist teacher services and health visitors. The joint review has enabled real service development and improvement of outcome‐based commissioning. Judges in the Commissioning Award category praised the Worcestershire team for ‘Impressive evidence of the difference their joint education/health commissioning strategy is making to children’ and said “They have really analysed needs across the County and involved service‐users throughout the entire commissioning process.” One of the key successes of the review has been its extensive involvement of service users in the process. They have used surveys, workshops and key stakeholder interviews, as well as questionnaires for parents to analyse how services are being used and whether there could be any improvements. The judges also found Worcestershire’s strategy has already had a measurable impact on children locally and has been so carefully planned that the impact can only increase over time. They are already sharing their work through a new website, speaking at conferences and writing for publications aimed at other commissioners. The Worcestershire SLCN Review has meant gaps in the service have been identified and begun to be addressed so that children, young people and their families will benefit from more consistent standards of service provision and delivery. Already long‐term goals have been put in place to make sure improvements continue: •
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Every Child A Talker (ECAT) will be sustained and rolled out to further settings in 2011/12. The programme has significantly reduced the numbers of children with delayed speech, language and communication skills in targeted pre‐school settings. Language Link ‐ a universal screening and early identification tool to identify children aged four to five‐and‐a‐half with receptive language difficulties – will be rolled out to a further 40 schools. It has meant earlier identification and intervention, which meant the number of children requiring targeted intervention at the end of reception year was halved.
