Speech and Language Therapy

(asked on 5th February 2019) - View Source

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 increase the number of speech and language therapists in the NHS.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 13th February 2019

The number of speech and language therapists working in the National Health Service in England has increased every year over the last five years. The Department is taking forward a range of measures to continue to increase these numbers across England.

This includes the ‘We are the NHS’ campaign, which focused on increasing the number of applications through Universities and Colleges Admissions Service for nursing and allied health professional degree courses beginning in September 2019. Acceptances onto speech and language therapy undergraduate courses in England in 2018 are the highest they have ever been since 2012.

Health Education England (HEE) Health Careers service regularly promotes the profession in line with other Health Career campaigns.

HEE leads an Allied Health Return to Practice programme, where qualified speech and language therapists can undertake a programme in order to return to work in the NHS in England.

Speech and language therapy education and training and recruitment and retention in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland is a matter for the devolved Governments in each nation.

Reticulating Splines