AIBU in thinking £90 for speech therapy is expensive?!

[Nothinglikeachocolatebrownie]

I've never used a speech therapist before but am going to one with by DD and I'm really surprised at the cost. Her paediatrician cost £150 for an hour, and the speech therapist is £90 for 45 minutes. AIBU in thinking this is extremely expensive? (In London btw).

What you are forgetting is that the 45mins face to face isn't the only time she will spend on you / your child.
Plus, when charging an hourly rate, it has to include % allowances for travel time, for annual leave, for sick leave, for things like professional registration and also CPD, for paperwork etc. etc etc

YABU. We’re in Yorkshire and pay £80 per 1 hr session for private SALT

@HoneysuckIejasmine yes the NHS still provides SALT but it is only termly in my city which has very little, if any, benefit to my son so we chose to employ a private therapist who sees him twice a week and the improvement has been amazing.
His NHS SALT sees him every 12 weeks in nursery and then sends a communication plan to home & nursery with targets.

My dd got free sessions when she was 2, we are in London. Do these not get offered anymore? If I remember correctly we were referred by the health visitor to the GP, she then had some hearing tests and when they were fine she was referred to the SLT.

@Thisseatisnotavailable
In my authority, there is something like a 21 month waiting list for SaLT IF you meet the very high criteria to get put on the waiting list after initial assessment, and that is IF your referral gets past the gate keepers and as far as an initial assessment.

That is why so many people pay for private therapy.

I never knew people struggled to get help so much. My son was seen weekly for years on nhs.

@HoneysuckIejasmine the NHS won't even put you on a waiting list until age 2 then there's around a year wait. That could mean your child being 3+ without any language at all

I notice you called this person a Speech Therapist. I appreciate you may have used the term to make your OP more readable, but would urge you to be cautious if this is what they referred to themselves as, rather than as a Speech and Language Therapist. A “Speech and Language Therapist” will have specific training, qualifications and registrations to be able to call themselves that, which is not necessarily the case for a “Speech Therapist”.

@CloudyGladys

I notice you called this person a Speech Therapist. I appreciate you may have used the term to make your OP more readable, but would urge you to be cautious if this is what they referred to themselves as, rather than as a Speech and Language Therapist. A “Speech and Language Therapist” will have specific training, qualifications and registrations to be able to call themselves that, which is not necessarily the case for a “Speech Therapist”.

@CloudyGladys (In the UK) if they're calling themselves "speech therapist" then by law they have to be a qualified / registered speech and language therapist - both are protected titles with HCPC.

i know a few salts from work and they all charge around that privately.
hopefully she'll give you a report on stuff you can support your dd with at home.
best of luck. a good salt is worth her weight in whole nut (my favourite)

We pay £100 for hourly sessions in SE london. I actually think it’s quite reasonable, she’s brilliant.

In my experience, speech therapy doesn't justify its high costs. I feel a bit taken advantage of. There's a long waiting list on NHS so anxious parents switch to private therapy. DS has difficulty in pronouncing a few sounds. I went to some therapy sessions with him. It was a 30 min session each week, charged at £65. It was mostly him reading a picture book and repeating sounds after the therapist. Yes she has a few simple techniques but they don't work magic. Obviously we had to keep doing that at home too. After 5-6 sessions I didn't see any progress. And I struggle to understand why I have to pay so much money for DS to go to read picture books, which he would do with his preschool teacher anyway. I don't think it's fair to compare this with other specialist professionals, as this is something that's needed on a weekly basis and for many months or even years to come. You only pay a private paediatrician every once a while, not every week.

They're expensive.

OT therapy is around the same price though with the right therapist it's definitely worth it.

I pay £75/hr just outside of London.

I’m in the US, I pay $125 per hour, 15mins of which is for report writing. I’ve found you get what you pay for and the good therapists are nearly always private, not accepting insurance, because they can.

If your child has pronunciation issues, one thing to watch for is the speech therapist working on the mouth muscles. Our speech therapist focuses on receptive language and we have these chew bars for developing jaw and mouth muscles. It’s helped a lot with eating and pronunciation.

I think that's quite a high charge, given as pp have said, it will usually mean quite a lot of appts.

My mum paid £55 for a podiatry visit that took 20 mins today. I think that's way too expensive as its only basic care she needs, nothing complex.

I think it's a lot given these are jobs you only need an undergraduate degree for. I think prices are going up as demand is there - waiting lists are so long in the nhs they know people are forced to go private

That is certainly not high for London slt. I've found many places with prices significantly higher than that. I'd say that's a good price.
Your paediatrician sounds very cheap by private healthcare standards for London. The normal is 200 woth most being closer to 250 that I've found (a lot of very recent experience).
Getting a Good speech therapist is remarkable, the speed thry make progress at is impressive and shouldn't take many sessions, so it's absolutley worry paying for a good one.

Is it speech or language your child needs? I do both in an infsnt school so please message me if you want any help at all.

We pay £80 per session in London and that’s the most reasonable I was quoted. If you’ve found someone with availability and it won’t bankrupt you I would bite their hand off.

for PP - DD on NHS waiting list for over 2 yrs. We were then granted 3 ‘zoom’ sessions with a useless woman which unsurprisingly our non verbal preschooler didn’t engage with. We then went back on a waitlist. Were then offered 3 sessions where they would go into nursery but this was retracted as nursery in a different borough (we live on border of two London boroughs). The system is a disgrace - but what isn’t these days. I’m only thankful that we can afford the commitment of the private SALT - it took a long time to find anyone with availability. It’s shocking and children are being let down. They certainly aren’t being seen for life on the nhs!!!