NHS refusing treatment to child who attends private school.

[floralcarpets]

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/boy-denied-treatment-nhs-hospital-private-school-kingston-richmond-b1231805.html

AIBU to think this is disgraceful? The mum is likely paying loads of tax which goes towards the NHS and pays for state schools, yet her child is this treatment which they sound like they desperately need.

And if said private schools don’t it can be accessed by the child’s GP.

It looks like a misleading headline and I haven’t read all the responses. However -

a) At my local hospital’s paediatric unit, they always ask where your child attends school. Mine are at a private school and I have detected some raised eyebrows at this. I had an awful experience with one particularly awful doctor who I had the misfortune to encounter as my eldest was being diagnosed with epilepsy, which was a terrifying time. She was awful for many reasons and one of them was her barking at me ‘well you can always leave and go private’ when I dared to question something she said.

b) forgive me if this has been addressed but I don’t think the NHS services in schools exist solely in state schools? The NHS nursing teams come into our school to administer injections (eg HPV).

As we didn’t opt out of any NHS services whatsoever in choosing a private school!

But that’s immunisations which it suits wider society for private school kids to have so it’s provided.

As a lot of people have said, it depends on how the service is commissioned and paid for. Vaccination isn't paid for by the school. In-school OT, SALT and Ed Psych services are paid for by the school.

Private schools can commission services for the pupils there. They can commission them from the NHS. But these services have to be paid for from the school budget.

I'm not saying I agree with this, but the children aren't being denied NHS services that the parents have "paid for". It's a school-based service paid for by a school they do not attend. E.g. I can't expect my child to access services in an out of county school that they don't attend. They aren't entitled to those services even if the service is provided by the NHS. My child isn't the responsibility of that LEA. It's the same for independent schools. The pupils there are not the responsibility of the LEA if they aren't enrolled in a state school.

The NHS pays for vaccinations for all children. However this OT service is not paid for by the NHS but by the local education authority as a commissioned service for its own local authority schools. The LEA has no budget for private school pupils. It loses an average of £6k for each child removed from an LEA controlled school. As others have said, state educated kids can’t just rock up to the local private school to demand to use its facilities, and vice versa. To access NHS services, the child must go through their GP.

Occupational Therapy is a health service. Occupational therapists are Allied Health Professionals not teachers.

Neither of those are educational.

The LEA has no budget for private school pupils. It loses an average of £6k for each child removed from an LEA controlled school.

It is exactly the opposite - if a child goes private the LEA saves ~£6k that it receives in funding that no longer needs to be spent on education.

As my DS OT said, occupational therapy is provided in this case to enable school children to carry out their occupation i.e. school work.

Other OTs are employed by occupational health services. Should those who don't work for that company also be able to access them?

The Daily Mail twisting facts to suit their agenda? Shocked.

Fucking rag that it is.

It’s all public money

It is still a health service. Would you say anti-epileptic medication was not a health provision because taking it enables a child to carry out their school work?

Councils (who are the local education authority) have responsibilities to all children. They are still required to provide services to children whose parents have opted out of one specific aspect of council provision (education). Just because a child has gone to private education or home education does not mean a council can choose to withdraw social work protection, carer services, library services, refuse collection, access to leisure centres, etc.

Can I have a tax rebate for the tax I pay that goes towards providing OT, SALT etc in state schools so I can give it to my private school to commission these healthcare services? No I thought not. So these services should be provided free of charge to all pupil, obviously!

The constant reference to ‘LEA’ is designed to confuse. The LEA is the council. When people say they are LEA commissioned services what they mean is they are COUNCIL commissioned services.

I think this is it. It's rare / bordering impossible to got OT at school. You normally need it via a EHCP which in itself is like pulling teeth out. My dd has OT at state school via her EHCP. But it basically is the OT saying dd doesn't engage and never passing info onto me unless it's in a yearly report after the fact.

It not easy to access and open to all and fundamentally what they offer is normally very very weak. Like speech therapy. What your offered and what you need isn't the same. It's watered down to get you back off the books in my personal experience

As they are -via the GP.

It's paid per child attending a state funded school in the area, not on per child existing in the area - and even it were to be changed, it wouldn't make that much difference because nobody knows for sure how many children live in an area.

Remember the stuff about 'Ghost children' post covid? That's because there is/are/were no complete records of children educated outside state schools.

Going by some of the posts here, I'm half expecting one of them to demand that their children are driven to school by people who have motorbility vehicles on the grounds the PIP is funded through taxation and it's not fair that somebody who has received money for mobility difficulties has then used it to lease a vehicle when the poor higher rate taxpayer's child has to make their own arrangements.

things like vaccinations are NHS funded not LEA funded.

Education funding is not ring-fenced and is part of the general council allocation. It is not based on children attending state schools.

no it isn't. A part of the NFF is definitely based on the number of children in state schools. This was published under the Conservative Government but ther process iand calculation is currently the same. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/651d2587bef21800156ded01/Nationalfunding_formulaforschoolsandhighneeds2024to_2025.pdf

How many millionaires would actually use state school? Not many. I also don't know any average wage earners who can afford private school and all that usually comes with it. Two unlikely scenarios.

Also, both would get it for free if the private school paid for the services but it is optional with private schools.

It's paid for by the LEA. Ring fenced for those who attend state school.

Private schools are free to pay for it themselves.

He does have an EHCP. He had lots of OT input in hospital and a refferal was made to the community as part of his discharge plan and he's had OT input since he was discharged.

But as I said, his situation was pretty extreme. He had a cardiac arrest due to complications from an illness and basically had to start over again and re learn everything which is still a work in progress. That's also just the half of it really.

Yea and what we are saying is NHS services shouldn’t be ringfenced depending on the type of school you go to. That’s crazy. One id healthcare, one id education. Two totally different services.