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.

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

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 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.

They’re not, you go to your GP

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.

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

It is

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Let me help you out here, and then I am finished with this. It is a Local Education Authority. The LEA is responsible for funding services to state funded schools. It does not have any responsibility for funding services in private schools. Everyone is entitled to access an LEA funded service - they can send their children to an LEA funded school. If you want access to an NHS service - which this is not, it is a school service - then you speak to your GP and if they consider it appropriate they will make a referral, and the NHS will then decide whether to provide that service or not.

I dispute this is not an educational service. Occupational health is similarly not an "employment service" yet lots of employers have OT services. Many of them bought in from the NHS exactly as this has been. If your employer provides OH services for employees, they aren't going to squeeze your husband, who works for an entirely different employer, in because you think it isn't fair his employer hasn't got one. It is exactly the same.

i know. BUT NHS funded therapists only see children in their own homes/home environment or on NHS premises. Therapists who go into schools are either employed by the LA or their services are purchased by the LA for use on LA educational premises ie Local Authority schools.

Schools fund and buy into different things. If you want this particular service you go to a school that buys into it. If not you go to your GP. PhilippaGeorgiou explains it well. It’s a total non story with woeful journalism.

The saying ''you can't have your cake and eat it'' comes to mind here. You can't opt out of state funded school and then demand the LA to still provide services for the child.

Nothing is wrong here.

The story is more complex that the headline suggests, it is always worth looking at a variety of news sources and doing a bit of fact checking

People should have to take a critical thinking test before accessing newspaper articles. Or starting Mumsnet threads.

Occupational therapy services for children in state schools is funded by local authorities. It was been like this since 2014 and became law as part of the Children and Families Act.
Local authorities do not fund private schools so obviously they won't pay for therapeutic services in private schools. Either the private school should commission and pay for it or the parent should go to the GP and get a referral to the GP that way.
The story is so misleading it would be unbelievable if it wasn't the Daily Mail .

I’m glad the issue is getting publicity. It’s not a new thing - 10 years ago my dd no longer could get her teacher of the deaf (a council post for children with a variety of forms of deafness) visits once she turned 5 because she was at a private school. Nor could her OT or SALT visit her in school. We had to pay privately for OT and SALT but teacher of the deaf is not something you can access privately; I took it to my (Labour) MP who couldn’t care less.

We could have got the visits if we had an EHCP but the wait list for our borough was 2 years and they rejected 90%. We didn’t have the mental capacity to cope with that and spent what we would have spent on an education lawyer on paying for the private intervention.

What about those who have to Home Educate because otherwise the children would receive no education

We are being taxed to the hilt, but the services are still not fit for purpose.

You could have gone to your GP. My dd never had her SALT or OT in school it was always outside of school and via the GP.

I think that's going to vary from place to place.... LA's do not have to provide funding for home schooling BUT NHS OT services can be provided on NHS premises or in the child's own home where the NHS has got a community service in place.