Special educational needs support in Herefordshire could do better says report

The official report card on partnership that special educational needs support in Herefordshire says it could do better.

Herefordshire Council and NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board are jointly responsible for providing services for children and young people with SEND in the county.

But its work “leads to inconsistent experiences and outcomes”, inspectors from Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) concluded following an inspection in December.

“The local area partnership must work jointly to make improvements,” they said.

Their inspection drew upon a survey of parents and carers, and of children and young people themselves.

Many parents were not fully aware of how to access the full range of support available locally, while less than a quarter of parents reported that their child gets the right help and support to join in with clubs, activities to benefit from holidays or make friends, according to the report.

The partnership’s plans for therapies and diagnostic services in the county are meanwhile “at an early stage of implementation, and have not yet sufficiently reduced waiting times for essential assessment and therapeutic intervention”.

But it found the county’s Young Adult Team “strongly supports disabled young people as they move to adulthood”.

And it singled out the Youth Employment Hub, based at Herefordshire Council’s Blue School Street offices in Hereford, as “an exciting recent development” supporting young people in employment, education and training.

Overall, county’s SEND partnership “has made improvements in several areas at an operational and strategic level” and “has invested in appointing additional staff and improved training”, it concluded.

Welcoming the inspectors’ the findings, a spokesperson for the local area partnership said: “The partnership remains highly committed to serving children and families well, despite the nationally acknowledged pressures on SEND services.

“We acknowledge that our current partnership’s arrangements have led to some inconsistent experiences for some children, young people and their families.”

A spokesperson for Parent Carer Voice Herefordshire said: “We recognise the inspector’s recommendations and will work strategically with the local authority and health to improve awareness of the Local Offer.”

This web-based service brings together information on services and support locally for parents of children with special needs.