Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure improved engagement and support for children and families from health and social care services as part of the SEND Improvement Plan.

We are working closely with the Department for Education to implement actions set out in the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and Alternative Provision Implementation Plan, with the aim of improving engagement and support for children and young people with SEND and their families.

This includes working with the Department for Education to take a joint approach to SEND workforce planning. We will establish a steering group this year to oversee this work, which we aim to complete by 2025. We will be commissioning analysis on the health needs of children and young people with SEND so these can be better met through effective workforce planning.

We will improve access to speech and language therapy by including Early Language and Support for Every Child pathfinders within our £70 million Change Programme in partnership with NHS England. The pathfinders will trial new ways of supporting children with speech, language and communication needs in early years and primary schools.

Local SEND and AP Partnerships will bring together representatives across early years, schools, further education, alternative and specialist provision, in addition to health, care and other partners, to increase national consistency, putting co-production at the centre of decision making. They will be responsible for working with parents and carers to produce a Local Inclusion Plan setting out the provision and services that should be commissioned in line with the national standards. This will inform the local offer and will be quality assured by the Department for Education.