RCSLT October news: fifth year of podcasts; campaigns, and round up from around the UK

In October's news:
-  It's five years since we launched podcasts at RCSLT. We take a look back at what's changed and stayed the same since then.
- RCSLT annual awards.
- Campaign to improve care for people living with Primary Progressive Aphasia: https://www.rcslt.org/news/campaign-to-improve-care-for-people-living-with-primary-progressive-aphasia-ppa-launched/
- DLD Vision turns one: https://www.rcslt.org/news/dld-vision-turns-one/
- AHPs Day 2024: https://www.rcslt.org/news/rcslt-marks-ahps-day-2024/
- Homelessness statement: https://www.rcslt.org/news/new-homelessness-and-speech-language-and-communication-policy-statement-launched/
- A round up of what's happening around the four nations of the UK including:
- Darzi review: www.rcslt.org/news/lord-darzis-n…ommunity-services/
- Phonics in Wales
- RCSLT Connect event coming up in Northern Ireland.
- National Care Service in Scotland.


Please do take a few moments to respond to our podcast survey uk.surveymonkey.com/r/LG5HC3R

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. It was produced and edited by freelance producer, Jacques Strauss.

Please be aware that the views expressed are those of the guests and not the RCSLT.

Please do take a few moments to respond to our podcast survey: uk.surveymonkey.com/r/LG5HC3R

Transcript

Transcript Date:  

30 October 2024  

Speaker Key (delete/anonymise if not required):  

HOST: VICTORIA HARRIS  

DEREK: DEREK MUNN  

MUSIC PLAYS: 0:00:00-0:00:06  

HOST: 0:00:06 It’s Friday, 25 October, and I’m Vicky Harris, Head of Learning at the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. I’m joined by Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs, for our regular monthly catch-up.  

I’d just like to start by saying that today’s episode marks the fifth anniversary of when we published our first podcast, and wondered how well it would be received. Luckily, it did okay – I was just looking back at the figures – and it was listened to in 16 countries, from the UK to the US, from Australia to Malaysia, and Lebanon to Hong Kong. So, we kept going, and very glad we did because it’s a great vehicle for sharing learning.  

Over to you, Derek. I wonder if you have any reflections of how the profession and the landscape in which it works has changed since October 2019.  

DEREK: 0:00:49 There’s a question, Vicky! October 2019, I suppose in the political world, we were gearing up for what proved to be the General Election of December 2019 where Boris Johnson won the election with a significant majority. We didn’t know what was coming our way early in the year 2020.  

The challenges around workforce pressures and funding and inequalities and waiting times, those, sadly, [inaudible 0:01:21]. And I guess what we’ve said since the pandemic is that those pre-existing inequalities were exacerbated to some extent by COVID-19.  

I would say, though, that compared to 2019, we do have a greater recognition in to some extent mainstream media and amongst sections of decision makers – I think the justice establishment would be a good example – of the role of speech language therapy. So, it’s not that there’s been no progress; there’s been greater recognition of the role, I would say, an opportunity coming out, particularly with things like apprenticeships. But those big underlying challenges relating to funding and workforce, sad to say, they haven’t gone away. 

What we now have, of course, is a new government, and I’m sure we will come on later in our conversation to the latest on where the new UK government is heading.  

HOST: 0:02:12 And more recent times, so the RCSLT held its annual awards yesterday. I wonder if we could tell listeners about what these are and why they’re so important, please?  

DEREK: 0:02:20 Yeah, I was reflecting on that on the way back from Birmingham, actually. There are two. There are what are called the fellowships, and I think all professional bodies – learned societies is the jargon – will have these fellowships which recognise people who’ve spent a long time and put a lot in. And we’re keen, yes, of course, to recognise people who’ve contributed to the academic side and research, but also to recognise the service of people who’ve been innovators in leadership and service design, or simply regarded for what they’ve done as individuals.  

And then the awards are more for things that are one-off, things that happened in the last year. It’s important to celebrate.  

It’s important to say thank you. I think that it can be very helpful back home with the local media or with the service that you work for to be able to point to the national recognition that you’ve received.  

A reminder, even for you and I, Vicky, doing this job every day, the sheer width of what speech and language therapy does is a constant marvel. And yesterday, we had, for the first time, awards for speech and language therapists working in the field of homelessness. Fascinating work, particularly around social communication, with people who are street homeless.  

We had awareness stuff around dysarthria. If you think of all the conditions and how little known they are, and people who’ve done work on dysarthria awareness, which is surely much needed. And for the first time, we had an award won by an apprentice and I thought that was a brilliant sign of the direction of travel that we’re going in.  

HOST: 0:03:58 That sounds fantastic, thanks, and I will put a link to our homelessness statement with the show notes as well. Thank you.  

Next question. I’ve been seeing a lot on social media, and listeners may have done as well, about campaigns that the RCSLT has been promoting or is at the heart of. I wonder if you can update listeners on what we’ve been doing, please?  

DEREK: 0:04:18 We’ve mentioned homelessness, which we had a launch in Parliament, actually, on the statement on homelessness earlier in the month. There was AHPs Day earlier in the month. Now, I think if you were wandering the streets of Britain, you wouldn’t have noticed people celebrating Allied Health Professionals Day, but we made it into a [hook 0:04:35] for a couple of things, actually. The first time since the new government had been in place in the new parliament, going back to the issue of prescribing rights. So, I represented our profession, along with representatives of half dozen other professions. We did what’s called the [handing 0:04:54]. We went to the Department of Health, we handed in a letter so they could be seen, so they could be registered, asking the new government to revisit.  

I would say there was a parliamentary question and answer on prescribing off the back of that last week, and the government answer was a little softer than we were getting from the from the previous administration, so that’s a first straw in the wind that we might be getting some movement there.  

Also on AHPs day, we launched our action to speech and language therapists and people who have had speech and language therapy to contact their new MPs. So, we’ve written to all the new MPs, and we’ve started to get some comeback. This is phase two, where we ask members and people with lived experience to follow in with their MPs. So, they’re seeing a flow of people saying that these issues [inaudible 0:05:38] concerned about that.  

We also marked DLD day last week. The co-produced vision for DLD and the way we’re taking that forward in different aspects. In particular, an event in the Northern Ireland Assembly.  

Another example of a smaller but still important campaign that we’re working on is to get recognition at England national level of a service that’s needed around primary progressive aphasia.  

HOST: 0:06:04 Thank you. As always, very, very busy. I wonder if we can now look around the four nations to UK. What’s the news from around the UK, please?  

DEREK: 0:06:12 The only words you’re going to hear from people in my department in the next three months are the words ‘10-year plan’. We spoke last month about Lord Darzi’s report on the state of the NHS in England. The response to that from the government has been to say, okay, we’re going to lay out how we’re going to go forward in the spring. And this week, consultation has been launched.  

Now, views vary. Levels of cynicism vary about the consultation. Health ministers and those advising them are vehement that this is genuine, and that they are going to be reading and looking at these. So, as well as the organisational response – we’ve got 5,000 words, I think – there is a portal for individual people to put forward their views, so we’ll be [inaudible 0:06:59] thinks is important. But we would encourage members very strongly to consider responding to the consultation.  

You’ll have heard Wes Streeting say analogue to digital, hospital to community, sickness to prevention. And Steve, our CEO, and I were at an event with Wes on Tuesday night where he said, look, I know I’m not the first health secretary to talk about those things, but this time I really mean it.  

The structure of the consultation exactly follows that. It basically says: What are your ideas for shifting from hospital to community? What are your ideas for shifting from sickness to prevention? So, that’s the frame in which we’re invited to respond.  

The other I would say in UK England level that continues to be fairly big is certain SEND – Special Educational Needs and Disability. MPs continue to raise it because they’re clearly under pressure in their constituencies. So, more parliamentary debates on it. And then a series of reports, and yesterday, as we record, the National Audit Office putting out a report in quite dry and austere tones as the NAO do, but using the word ‘broken’ – the same word that Wes Streeting used about the NHS, the National Audit Office have described the SEND system as broken. And the projections for the number of education, health and care plans, how expensive they are, and how much of the available resource is going to [inaudible 0:08:26] is simply not sustainable, so something is going to have to shift on that.  

Also in the last month, [inaudible 0:08:34] commission report, which we were able to influence quite strongly. So, that continues the flow of children’s spoken language being at the forefront of conversation.  

Briefly in the nations, big stramash in Wales around reading, children’s reading, and the issue of phonics, but the conversation focused a lot on children with speech, language and communication needs, which was a good thing. There was a question and answer to the new First Minister of Wales specifically about speech and language therapy.  

We’ve got a motion in the Scottish Parliament following on from a visit, and this is still visits to MSPs that came off the children’s event that we held in the Scottish Parliament in June.  

The National Care Service is the story in Scotland, and there continues to be quite a lot of difficulty. There’s some real question now, I think, about whether the National Care Service will go ahead.  

Northern Ireland has been conference season for the Northern Ireland political parties, and the Northern Ireland team have been out and about taking the opportunity of the Northern Ireland political conferences to build and rebuild political links, and actually particularly to focus members of the Northern Ireland Assembly on the communication access UK training.  

That would be my wee round-up for today.  

HOST: 0:09:49 Thank you ever so much, and I will put links to all of those relevant things in the notes as well. Okay, thank you.  

We’ve got another podcast coming out next week, and that will be on the speech and language therapy role in literacy, and we’ve got some contributors from the UK, Germany, and Australia, so that will be a good one.  

Our next news piece is on Monday, 25 November, so a month from today, and we’ve invited our new chair, Irma Donaldson, to come and say hello and talk about her role, so that will be good.  

And finally, please do fill in our survey if you can to help us keep improving and to give your suggestions for future episodes, and I’ll put a link in with the notes.  

Thank you very much.  

MUSIC PLAYS: 0:10:28 

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