Should I make a complaint to the Health Professions Council?

[Iceflower]

This is occupying my mind a lot at the moment. Briefly an NHS SALT spent 10 mins with ds (dx AS) and discharged him, saying his speech was at least average, and he had SCD which should be addressed within school. The assessment report was 4 lines long.

I asked to meet her and she bluffed her way through, saying "all asd children" had the same problems and patronisingly, "if I was you, I would be asking for help too". She said he didn't need any direct help from her and school should help him; the PCT had a clinical pathway that excluded support for ASD children.

Following a FOI, I found that they were supporting a number of children with ASD. When I challenged her, she said the FOI return was wrong, due to a secretary who shouldn't have completed it . She then referred me to her manager. There followed a number of communications where the manager supported her and I got nowhere.

So I went to my GP and got another referral. The SALT refused to see ds .

The thing is, ds also has other speech and language difficulties unrelated to asd, and an NHS OT picked up on this. The SALT basically couldn't be bothered to conduct an assessment, and jumped to conclusions and discharged him.

I appointed an independent SALT who conducted an hour long screening and from the feedback, confirmed all my suspicions and ds needs substantial input.

I feel strongly it is wrong that I should have to pay for an independent salt, and it is my suspicion that this is not the first time she has done this, so practised and glib was her spiel.

However, if I complain, any possible support/relationship in future would surely not be possible? Also I am about to apply for a statement, which would include asking for SALT which usually comes from the NHS?

What would you do?

Well where you were I would and did carry on battling.

I worked my way through the complaints process and up th seniority ladder of SALTs until I had an hour weekly of an ASD specialist SALT.

After a term I cancelled all appointments. Waste of blardy time! She knew in detail all his difficulties but couldn't come up with anything that woukd help.

The 'information' was handy, an my persistent demands for acknowledgement of his difficulties has given us a good case for his now SALT school provision but really, if it is just SALT you want I woukdn't bother.

Thanks, Star. I need to turn this over in my head some more, but keep thinking she shouldn't be allowed to get away with this.

No, but only fight the principle if you have the energy to do that AS WELL. Be careful you're not doing it INSTEAD and getting side-tracked.

Hi Ice had similar problems with Salt. If I were you I would write to the most senior person in the SALT that you can find. Include all your concerns and a copy of your independent report state that you would like to be seen now urgently by a different more qualified salt and that if this does not happen you will have no choice but to complain to the professional body and to seek legal advice. In my experience they will do anything to stop that happening and hopefully will help. Hope to works out for you.

Thanks Holy, that was one of the options I had in mind.

Why does it all have to be such a battle , as if I'm not having enough problems/challenges trying to sort dd out, but that's another very long story

I think you have had good advice. I have been stuck in a lengthy battle with S&LT for nearly a year now to no avail and it has gone to the Chief Exec's office.

S&LT and S&LT contracts are a highly political issue. You will be stonewalled with complaints. And the problem is, as Star says, most of the time what you fight for isn't worth it!

Thanks AT. Perhaps if I fell out big time with them, it might be a reason for direct payments as we couldn't work together