NHS refusing treatment to child who attends private school.

I live locally and that’s how it’s done here. In the report it is about his ability to write etc due to joints. My daughter has regular OT
and from 5 years old it has always been done at school. She moves to private school in September and will no longer receive local authority based OT at school and her new school will have to provide it with in the fees or charge in our case the local authority.

yes but not in a private school unless the private school funds it.

It is to do with commissioning and how services are commissioned.

Speech and language therapy is another very common service only commissioned for children attending state mainstreams.

There is 2 different it services when it comes to children
one who will deal with things Iike home equipment / adaptions etc which is actually mainly through social services and then children have one who will see them at school past the age of 5. Before 5 st the developmental centre which assess things that fine motor skills / gross motor skills etc

My daughter went to a state school and OT was school service now she is moving to private schools it wil be apart of her private school service. She can apply via the local authority for a ehcp to get offyiostional therapy provided even at private school but this story isn’t as simple as it’s made out.

It is

OT is a health service so if a child requires OT is should be provided regardless of schooling.

They aren't. Its simply that private schools don't have access to publicly funded facilities. The child can be seen at home or in an NHS facility, just not on private school premises.

They’re not, you go to your GP

I don't know the full story but I suspect that the issue is that the therapists involved will see the child in a clinic or visit them at home to advise on seating, activity, use of tools, cutlery, writing and so on..There may even be funding for seating/walking aid provision etc for personal equipment for the child to use at home. What the NHS Therapists won't do is visit the school to assess and advise the school on seating and so on, and they certainly won't fund equipment for the school although equipment funded for the child to use at home can be taken to school and used there. I think its not about school gatekeeping as such. The situation is similar in private residential care. NHS Staff go into residential care round here to treay and also advise on an individual person's needs and can provide equipment solely for the use of their patient...so if the patient needs a toilet aid and has an en suite, equipment can be provided if the budget allows. If the toilet facility is shared with other people then its up to the residential care to fund and fit the equipment.

What do you suggest people do when their child is getting beaten up every day and starting to self harm. The local authority give a twee smile and say ‘inclusion’. The school roll their eyes and say nothing can be done. The police charge the bully with assault week in week out and nothing ever happens as there are no consequences for their actions. What would you do?

There are people whose kids have crippling anxiety due to having to witness classmates throwing chairs and other objects around, shouting and sweating at teachers, and they cry continually in school. What would you do in this situation?

There are people whose dyslexic children are being ignored as the school doesn’t have the time or funds to help them. What would you do?

The options for so many people are home educating or private schooling. I get frustrated by the attitude that private school parents deserve to be deprived of further public services.

I'm a firm believer in the wealthy being taxed to the hilt and then being entitled to all the public services.

No half decent human being can possibly argue that it’s ok for the taxpayer to fund education for some hospitalised children but not others. Private schools budgets are extremely tight and will probably not stretch to paying over £100 per hour per child for potentially a long period of time. Parents of sick, hospitalised, children are already often under severe financial pressure and probably can’t afford it. No civilised society should be refusing to help sick children and families. Let’s forget about the technicalities of the how the funding works; it’s a question of human decency.

I agree!

The other point that no one is making is that just because a service is available in mainstream state schools doesn't mean your child will actually be able to access it. The SEN budgets in schools are hugely over stretched. They might commission 10 hours of OT time a year for a school with a thousand pupils. Most children with SEN, even with an EHCP, will end up having to access private services because there just isn't enough provision to go around.

I have 3 children with disabilities, and even the one with an EHCP doesn't get all the service provision they needs in school. The other two get next to nothing.

I think the issue here is that so much is now being considered a school's responsibility.... OT, S&L, mental health... Why is the NHS off-loading it onto schools?

The parent says that the child has hypermobility, causing joint pain... Surely that is a health issue and should be treated as such. Why does that need to go through schools?

Why do schools gate-keep so much nowadays? They are not the experts. I'm even talking about ND conditions; in many areas, you can't get a referral for an assessment, unless it goes through the school. My DC was originally refused a full ADHD assessment due to lack of evidence from the school. Yet she had a screening with an ADHD clinical specialist, who concluded she had a high likelihood of receiving a diagnosis. School did not see many ASD traits - all three HCPs she saw recognised them and she has a diagnosis.

I completely understand that schools can't see everything, but that is why it is crazy that they have so much involvement and gate-keep in the way they do.

These days they go into private schools that take state funded SEN children.

I’m not sure it’s all that different. As the article says, it would be expected that the school would sort out a private arrangement. The service is commissioned by the LEA for state educated pupils. The LEA is not responsible for privately educated pupils, hence they have to pay.

YABU for not bothering to try to understand the issue before posting rage bait.

Nobody is " forced " to opt out mist people don't have the privilege of being able yo choose.

This isn’t new. Arguably the disparity has grown because in-school medical provision of this diet has increased. Children at private schools with an EHCP such that the council pays the fees will get this service free of charge. The many children in the private sector whose parents felt abandoned by the state and jumped ship before getting an EHCP, or those lawyers didn’t manage to get the school stipulated on the EHCP will be self-finding their fees and will, correspondingly, not be eligible for state funded occupational therapy.

You don't have to pay for the service if it is provided in NHS premises or in the child's home.

Paid For by the Local Authority or anyone else, it’s still a non-education public service that the local authority is only providing to those that go to state schools. Now if private school pupils can still access this service from the GP that’s fine, but if the state is providing no free access to this healthcare service to those at private school then can we agree that that is wrong?

There are so many pupils being failed by the state system whose parents choose private as a last resort. We are penalised by the state system letting us down by having to pay for the alternative schooling, and the BVAT on that alternative schooling. We shouldn’t have to pay for certain healthcare services too.

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/sick-private-school-pupils-denied-access-education

It’s not dissimilar to this situation. How anyone can defend the refusal of LEAs to provide health care and education to ill children (regardless of the technicalities of how the funding works) is beyond me.

This explains it perfectly, I think!