RCSLT News October 2023: RCSLT awards, party conferences, DLD, aphasia and more

In October's news:

- RCSLT awards https://www.rcslt.org/news/congratulations-to-all-the-amazing-award-winners/
- Party conference season
- Intermediate care framework for rehab, reablement and recovery following hospital discharge
- NIHCR evidence on aphasia after stroke
- Focus on DLD

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This interview was conducted by Victoria Harris, Head of Learning at The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and features Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the RCSLT.

Transcript

Transcript Date: 

17 October 2023 

HOST:                         VICTORIA HARRIS 

DEREK:                      DEREK MUNN 

MUSIC PLAYS: 0:00:00-0:00:09 

HOST:                         0:00:09 Welcome to the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists news catch up. It’s Friday, 13 October. I’m Vicky Harris, Head of Learning, and I’m here with Derek Munn, RCSLT’s Director of Policy and Public Affairs. 

We have a little cause for a celebration today, as it’s our podcast’s fourth birthday, and it also happens to be the 100th episode of all of our RCSLT podcasts, and we launched with an RCSLT conference special back in 2019. 

As we’ve been going for so long, there’s a huge back catalogue of episodes which you can find on our SoundCloud channel, or via all the major podcast apps. 

Good morning, Derek. 

DEREK:                      0:00:44 Hello. 

HOST:                         0:00:46 A week ago, the RCSLT held its awards, its annual awards. Could you tell the listeners about these please, and why they’re so important. 

DEREK:                      0:00:56 Thank you, Vicky. Yes, I think whenever you think about awards ceremonies, and actually there were a couple of last night in allied health profession world, you want [to be important 0:01:05] that you’re not just being self-congratulatory, or doing for the sake of it. 

I suppose, whenever I go to the RCSLT awards ceremony, I’m aware that for the people involved, this is a big moment in their personal and professional lives. It’s recognition of everything that they’ve done for the profession and the people they work with. 

We have two kinds – we have what we call the honours, which are fellowships of the Royal College as a professional society, and they’re a recognition, really, for long-term and lifetime achievement, in whatever area, and they’re really important. But I also like the Giving Voice Awards that we have, which are much wider and more diverse, can recognise things that have happened in a year. 

And actually, in the room last Friday we had, of course, speech and language therapists at every stage of their career, we had passionate service user advocates, we had allies from other professions. What I like particularly is when I see that being used back on the ground. You see an NHS employer welcoming and celebrating the award that their employees have got, or you see people managing to use social media to get cut through about the service that they provide – that kind of thing. 

It was notable that there was quite a lot in the field of DLD awareness, and we’ll come back to that as we talk about what’s going on this October. 

HOST:                         0:02:31 Wonderful, thank you. It’s also very busy at the moment because it’s party conference season. Are there key things you’re hearing back from the parties which are of interest to our listeners, please? 

DEREK:                      0:02:42 I can report that nobody got up at a political party conference and used the words ‘speech and language therapy’, which was not a great surprise. And my take on it, Vicky, is that a lot of it was confirmation of directions of travel that we already knew. 

I think we were pleased that the conference documentation around the Liberal Democrats does make reference to communication need, and I think that does partly respond to work we’ve been doing with the Lib Dems. 

The conservatives have asked us, actually, to pitch around early intervention to the Conservative Policy Forum. That was going to be in their conference, it’s now going to be a bigger event in London before the year end. So, that’s useful [to think 0:03:26] into Conservative thinking. 

Of course, podcast listeners have heard me say many times that we are politically impartial as a charity. A lot of the thinking is that Labour are likely to be part of the next government, and we’re giving it due attention in that regard. 

It’s worth listeners remembering Labor’s draft documentation already talks about spoken language, already talks about evidence-based early language interventions in every school. So, we know that we’ve got one big ticket item there. 

I listened with care to what Wes Streeting had to say about the NHS on Wednesday. Some of it is rhetoric with which we would absolutely agree. The focus on primary and community, and the shift to some extent away from hospital. The focus on prevention. Of course, we have heard these things before. The question is, will it be real this time? And we are still waiting for some detail. [I liked 0:04:30] at one point where Wes was talking about the tendency to have pathfinders and pilots and he said the NHS sometimes has more pilots than the RAF, which certainly chimes with something I’ve felt down the years when government announces yet another pilot of this or that language programme, rather than thinking about generalisation.

Labour were very clear – and they’ve never said this before – that the current NHS, if unreformed, is heading for bankruptcy. That’s a statement. 

They’ve been very clear about saying they’re going to say where stuff’s coming from. So, the mental health interventions in schools, which are good, they say they’re going to fund from the abolition of tax relief on private education. And the general NHS funding they say they’re going to fund from the ending of the non-dom status. 

Did Labour talk about allied health professionals? No – I didn’t really expect that. But have we got more indications of direction of travel? Yes, we have. 

VICKY:                        0:05:44 Thank you. Fascinating stuff. Is there anything else listeners might be interested in today, please? 

DEREK:                      0:05:51 I’ve just picked out a few things, Vicky. NHS England has published intermediate care framework for rehab, reablement and recovery. Our colleague, Judith Broll, the Director of Professional Development has been very closely involved in this work. It’s about what happens after hospital discharge. There’s a model around community rehab and reablement. It’s got potential. It’s got potential because we know the extent to which rehab can be a poor relation on the ground. Yet again, it’s a question of how is this playing out in reality. The model of good practice includes a number of references to people’s communication needs. 

There [inaudible 0:06:38] waiting lists, where we are analysing our second vacancy survey right now. But you continue to get media interest and stories appearing all the time about waiting lists – sometimes saying slightly different things; there was one suggesting that children’s waiting lists got a little bit better, while still being very bad. Another one saying adults have gone up. There’s also been different stories about the number of education, health and care plans, and the cost to the HCPs. 

So, in the midst of this mix, we continue to say, of course, every patient and parent concern is concern about waiting lists, and waiting times more importantly. But we also know that we need to have the time to assess and treat people properly. And of course, we are concerned that every child within the EHCP gets the provision they need. We’re also concerned about the kids that don’t have the HCPs, so that those issues continue to rumble on. 

I just wanted to mention one thing. It’s not actually public affairs, it’s a research matter, but I think podcast listeners will want to be aware of it if they’re not. New research that’s come out from NIHR is a large international analysis about stroke and aphasia. Basically, this very solid research is saying effectiveness of speech language therapy by stroke, it’s better if you start it early within 28 days, and it’s better if you give a higher dosage. So, an important bit of research that members in that area will want to be aware of. 

We’ve got an event coming up in Parliament next week with Chris Kamara, the footballer and TV pundit who has acquired adult apraxia. And we’ll be focusing on communication needs more generally, as well as dyspraxia, apraxia, where we go into Parliament this coming Thursday. 

And I mentioned at the top of the podcast that October is DLD Awareness Month. It’s also Stammer Awareness month – we’re aware of that. On DLD side, we’re about to launch a co-produced vision around what a DLD-friendly society looks like. We’re going to be backing that up with an event in the Northern Ireland Assembly and an event in the Welsh Senedd next week. And I think in handing back to you, there’s other stuff on DLD too. 

HOST:                         0:08:58 Thank you, Derek. Yes, we have recorded a podcast for DLD Awareness Day, and that will be coming out on the day on 20 October, so look out for that. And also to say that our next news podcast will be in late November and will guest star RCSLT CEO, Steve Jamieson. 

MUSIC PLAYS: 0:09:16

END OF TRANSCRIPT: 0:09:23