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.

It would be the same. Does your child have an EHCP that states SLT is needed? If not, does your current school have SLT services commissioned? If not, are the local SLT team paid to provide services to the school? If not, then yes you’d have to pay.

A Bsky thread looking into the claims

https://bsky.app/profile/monkemma.bsky.social/post/3lr3ukywync2r

What do we think?🤔
Hmm…. A Daily Mail headline so clearly designed to make you furious. Being shared by salivating Tory MPs who love a good rage farming story!
So, what’s going on here?
Let’s take a look!👀

Different areas will have services commissioned in different ways.

Obviously the state schools which have to take everyone, also offer a higher degree of access to specialized care for the children in their care. You chose to move your child to a private school in order to not have to share limited resources with other children. Of course you have to pay for that.

As for the family in the story: they willingly found the money for special educational advantages why don’t they go private for health care as well?

No. If there’s an EHCP in place you won’t have to pay for help. For those not on one, there’s a (very small) provision of help via state schools.

Kids on EHCPs, as the article clearly states.

Why would using private education mean the parents would want (or have the means) to fund private healthcare?

It’s obvious there’s nuance and it’s not as straightforward as the article makes is seem BUT that doesn’t mean it’s not consequential and unfair for the family involved. I think some posters are happy to hand wave it away as “commissioning or a technicality” because it doesn’t affect them. Plenty of families feel they have to fund private education only because the state system couldn’t accommodate their children’s needs. So this will seem doubly unfair.

There is really no point in responding to someone who reads and believes in crap like this from the Daily Mail.

Must be some random administrative error. About a quarter of all pupils in the borough referred to are privately educated, so this is hardly going to be an unusual situation for the local NHS to face!

The Times had this story this morning and there was no mention of it being a commissioned service in the reply from the NHS. So not DM only winding it up.

ypu Can’t get a cigarette paper between The Times and the Mail these days. It’s all very clear in the article linked in the OP.

My DD’s dyspraxia OT was done at the hospital not in school. I’m sure if he goes to the GP he can get a referral but there will be a long wait. I’m sure private like private education is an option if they don’t want to suck up the realities of the state system.

It must depend on area. We have a local Children’s Centre that specialises in speech and language and OT and some of it is delivered in the Centre, some in state schools and I think for private school kids they go to the Centre.

Just to balance this out a bit, private boarding schools, the most expensive ones as well, do get NHS treatment via GPs I think and allocated hours as such so the kids there quite often get to see the GP quite easily. Also in our area nurses definitely visit state and private schools for vaccinations.

My son is in a state school and we asked to by our school Sen to get dr's appointment to request a ot referral. My son has massive sensory issues and had been eating thing's he shouldn't and also had a echp, I couldn't get a referral. I was passed between the dr's and pediatric nurse, neither any help. It's about funding and how hard you push.

It is not an administration error.

This NHS facility ONLY treats preschool children registered with a Richmond GP or those at state school.

Their referral criteria mean they will not treat Electively Home Educated children who are residents in Richmond either.

https://www.kingstonandrichmond.nhs.uk/services/service-search-z/occupational-therapy-children-richmond

"Referrals will be considered by the service for pre-school and school aged children and young people according to the following criteria:

• Parental/carer consent is obtained
• All preschool children with a Richmond GP
• All school aged children who are residents in the Richmond or Kingston boroughs and attend a state maintained Richmond school. This includes children who have Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs).
• All school aged children who are not residents in Richmond but who have a Richmond GP with primary and complex physical disabilities whose needs can be met within the clinic service."

But why should they have to?

So they can access it via their GP, a non story.

They can access it via their GP.

It's not that easy in a state school to get an OT either!

That's a really misleading article. They are being denied a service that is provided to and in the local state schools. They need a different service provided at home or in the private school. Really, their problem is that they've chosen a school that doesn't provide the service they need. They should shop around better. It's like if I went to Sainsbury's and then complained that they don't sell Aldi chocolate.

That report is very misleading and obviously written to support a particular agenda

State schools get CAMHs support now too which private schools won’t. Like OT this too can be access via the GP. A total non story.

They have to because the service they want us attached to the school they don’t go to. If they had piano lessons for free at the stare school and then went private should they be able to rock up and bounce the state kids from their lessons in order to keep accessing them for free? Lots of local services are limited to residents. They are no linger residents of the school.

Do you mean the final bullet point? That only seems to cover physical disability. Many children with SEN are educated privately due to state schools not meeting learning disabilities. Often OT can help those students too.