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Sustainability and Transformation Plans

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Meeting: 18/10/2016 - Cabinet (Item 200)

Webcast for 18/10/2016 - Cabinet

200 Delivery of New Speech and Language Therapy Service and Joint Commissioning Arrangements for Specialist School Nursing Service PDF 229 KB

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Webcast for Delivery of New Speech and Language Therapy Service and Joint Commissioning Arrangements for Specialist School Nursing Service

Decision:

RESOLVED:

It is recommended that the Cabinet agree that:

1. Surrey County Council will continue to jointly commission the Specialist School Nursing service with Surrey Clinical Commissioning Groups.

2. the speech and language therapy service for special schools and specialist settings will be transferred to Surrey County Council alongside the mainstream school service from April 2017

3. That approximately 64 staff will transfer across to Surrey County Council from April 2017.

Reasons for Decisions

Speech and Language Therapy

In February 2014, Cabinet agreed to issue new contracts to Virgin Care Services Ltd and CSH Surrey Ltd for an additional three years whilst joint commissioning arrangements were agreed with Health. These contracts expire in March 2017; therefore there is a requirement for new service arrangements to be in place from April 2017.

In May, 2015, Cabinet agreed the following decisions regarding the future joint commissioning and delivery of a Speech and Language Therapy Service in Surrey:

1. that the Cabinet approves the draft commissioning strategy and the five joint commissioning principles within the strategy;

2. that the Cabinet agrees in principle to the realignment of commissioning responsibilities for the Council and Surrey Clinical Commissioning Groups;

3. that the Cabinet agrees for work to continue in developing a detailed costing model for a new speech and language therapy service. At this stage it is estimated to mean an increase of £377,000 in the Council’s budget, to be made available from the Schools’ High Need Block and will be subject to Schools Forum approval in June; and

4. that the Cabinet agrees that the new speech and language therapy service should be procured through devolving funding directly to special schools and specialist centres and bringing the mainstream service in-house to the Council. This service will be fully in place from September 2016.

The joint commissioning strategy agreed between Surrey County Council (SCC) and Surrey Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) means the realignment of commissioning responsibilities for each organisation. SCC will become responsible for commissioning the school aged services and Surrey CCGs will re-direct resource into Early Years.

This Cabinet paper sets out further changes to the proposals detailed in the May 2015 Cabinet paper. These changes are:

· postponing the implementation date from September 2016 to April 2017. This date was put back whilst discussions took place with current providers of the service. Following further dialogue, both providers were satisfied that their concerns were being addressed and implementation could progress; and

· bringing the service for specialist settings (Surrey special schools and specialist centres) into SCC to sit alongside the mainstream service.

A jointly commissioned service that brings the school-aged service into SCC will offer the following benefits. These include:

· a service that achieves value for money – where the therapy service will be educationally focused and child-centred;

· reducing the gap in accessing speech and language therapy input between children and young people who have an Education, Health and Care plan and those that do not;

· offering a school-based delivery model rather than ... view the full decision text for item 200

Minutes:

An introduction to the report was provided by the Cabinet Member for Schools, Skills and Educational Achievement who highlighted that the delivery of Speech and Language Therapy services in Surrey had been patchy over the past few years. The recommendations outlined in the report were designed to improve how these services were delivered. Members were informed that the recommendations within the previous report considered by Cabinet at its meeting in May 2015 could not be agreed with schools and so it had been concluded that the best way to deliver an effective Speech and Language Therapy Service would be for SCC to manage it centrally. The Cabinet Member stressed that this would enable the development of a more consistent, streamlined and cost efficient service and that responsibility for funding would continue to be split between the Council in the sum of £2.8m which is provided from the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) and the CCG's with an estimated current spend of £1.7m. She further advised that the Council would not incur additional costs for the provision of pensions for speech and language therapists TUPEd over to the Council as a result of the proposed changes to the delivery of this service.

The Cabinet Associate for Children and Families Wellbeing stated that moving to a centralised model for the delivery of Speech and Language Therapy services supported the strategic goals of the SEND 2020 programme by focusing delivery around customers and service users. The aim was to enable children who require speech and language therapy to access these services at an early age and would therefore support inclusive education by giving them the best possible chance of attending a mainstream school.

The Cabinet Member for Wellbeing and Health said that the report demonstrated how joint commissioning with healthcare partners can create better services for residents not only in relation to Speech and Language Therapy but also specialist school nurses who help to ensure that children with an Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP) can attend mainstream schools.

RESOLVED