"Speech and Language Therapy"

In September 2014 my child was refered by his nursery to Speech and Language Therapy.

In March 2014 I received a letter from the Service after doing a bit of chasing and making a few phone calls in between times to see what had happened to the referral.

The letter asked me to call a number and arrange a telephone consultation with a speech and language therapist where an assessment would be carried out to decide whether or not my child needed and appointment with a speech therapist at this time.

Unfortunatley when this letter came in my child was very ill and had a few Hospital and GP visits therefore I never called speech and language therapy straight away. Within two weeks I recieved another letter which said that as I hadn't called my child would be taken of their list of referrals - I could not believe it after all this time. I phoned and apologised for not getting back within the time that they had expected me to (the first letter never gave me a deadline). I explained the circumstances and the girl kindly placed us back on to the system.

We made the telephone appointment for May which the Speech Therapist called exactly as planned. She was very helpful and knowledgeable and I have since received a letter saying that the local speech therapist would be in touch to make a face to face appointment for our local speech therapist.

My child will be going to School in August. If this process had been smoother we could have had some speech therapy in place before now and this could have helped and prepared my child better for going to school.

Fingers crossed we will receive our appointment soon.

I understand the department is very busy but I think that the referral process should be reviewed. I don't really think its working!