Professor John Robertson OBA
From BBC Scotland today, the above case study and:
Families [well two] worried over lack of specialist speech therapists – A new report seen by BBC Scotland News shows that demand for speech and language therapists (SLT) is increasing in Scotland but that the numbers of therapists is falling behind the rest of the UK.
The report, by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), says Scotland needs to increase its full-time equivalent SLT therapists by 370, from a current total of 530. It also says that Scotland is lagging behind England in terms of the ratio of speech and language therapists to children.
The RCSLT report states: “Over the past five years, Scotland’s speech and language therapy workforce increased by just 2%, compared to 15% across the rest of the UK.
“This limited growth has not kept pace with rising demand.”
Freedom of Information (FOI) data, obtained by the RCSLT, shows that the number of children waiting for speech and language therapy increased from 6,503 in May 2023 to 6,727 in May 2024 – with 53% waiting longer than 18 weeks in both years.
Notice, the above does not tell you how many children are actually waiting for speech therapy in England.
The most recent data I can find are:
NHS England data from May [2023] shows 97,824 people in the community waiting for help (76,331 children and 21,493 adults), with some facing long delays.
So 10 times the Scottish figure of 6 503 for the same year suggests that England might have expected to have around 65 000 waiting but had nearly 76 000 children waiting, 11 000 or 16.9% more.
Makes you wonder why BBC Scotland didn’t have a look for that comparison.
Who is responsible for any shortages of speech therapists? Labour-run North Lanarkshire Council is of course, in this case, but BBC Scotland, contrary to practice by BBC Wales, BBC England and BBC N Ireland, start by approaching the Scottish Government for comment.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I was watching that news item and I knew it in my bones that it was bound to be biased if not wrong. I also knew that TUS would be on the case. Well done as usual John.
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