RCSLT news Jan 2025: 80th anniversary; Senedd event; Westminster debate; VoiceBox comp & more

The January news podcast for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists featuring Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs, Cara McDonagh, Director of Communications and Engagement and Pippa Cotterill, Head of Wales for the RCSLT. Published 24 January 2025.

It's the RCSLT's 80th anniversary! In this podcast our guests tell you all about a launch of the birthday year which was held in the Welsh Senedd and also how you can get involved in the celebrations.
www.rcslt.org/news/celebrating-t…he-rcslt-turns-80
https://www.rcslt.org/news/rcslt-wales-launch-report-at-senedd-event/

In other news:

The VoiceBox 2025 competition launched on 'Blue Monday'. It's now open for primary aged children across Scotland to share their best joke: www.rcslt.org/news/voicebox-2025…nd-on-blue-monday/

We are thrilled to say that the Invest in SLT petition tabled by Mikey Akers will be debated in Parliament on Monday 27 January: www.rcslt.org/news/invest-in-slt…ted-in-parliament/

The Welsh Conservatives led a debate on speech and language therapy in the Senedd: https://www.senedd.tv/Meeting/Clip/1f043949-cb18-427c-b794-151b1044adc3?inPoint=03:45:32&outPoint=04:37:08

This interview was conducted by Victoria Harris, Head of Learning at The Royal College of Speech and 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 January 2025 

Speaker Key (delete/anonymise if not required): 
HOST: VICTORIA HARRIS 
CARA: CARA McDONAGH 
PIPPA: PIPPA COTTERILL 
DEREK: DEREK MUNN 

 

MUSIC PLAYS: 0:00:00-0:00:06
 
HOST: 0:00:06 Welcome to the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists first news podcast of the year. It also happens to be a very special year, and our guest today will be telling you more about that later. There are four of us in the [inaudible 0:00:16] room today, so we have RCSLT colleagues, Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs, Cara McDonagh, Director of Comms and Engagement, and Pippa Cotterill, Head of Wales, and, of course, me, Vicky Harris, Head of Learning. 

Cara, perhaps we can start with you. What’s so special about 2025 for the world of speech and language therapy? 

CARA: 0:00:34 So, we celebrated, or began celebrating, a particularly important year for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. On 6 January, we marked 80 years of existence, so really big time for us. And obviously, the RCSLT has gone through quite a lot of changes over that time, including our name. We didn’t actually become a Royal College and get our Royal Charters until 1995, and lots of things have happened over that time, but we’re really looking forward to celebrating this year and marking that special anniversary and all the things that has been achieved across the profession throughout 2025. 

HOST: 0:01:13 And I know there was a big launch event last week. Pippa, you were obviously very involved in this. I wonder if you can paint a picture for our listeners, please, of what happened there. 

PIPPA: 0:01:21 Yes. RCSLT took over the atrium of the Senedd building, that is, the Welsh parliament building, looking out over the waters of Cardiff Bay. From the stage, there were speeches by the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Royal College, from the member of the Senedd sponsoring the event, Jane Dodd. 

MEDIA CLIP: 0:01:41 You actually work from the cradle to the grave, and it’s really important that we continue to support you going forward. I know it’s not been easy. You’ve seen waiting lists grow. The average number of children and young people here in Wales on waiting lists has grown by 31%, and we need to do better to make sure that we help those people. 

PIPPA: 0:02:04 From the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care in Welsh Government, Jeremy Miles. 

MEDIA CLIP: 0:02:09 And it’s a real honour to be able to celebrate 80 years of innovation with you. Eighty years of continuing improving the quality and evidence base of professional practice. 

PIPPA: 0:02:27 And most importantly, from service users. So, from Karen, who has apraxia of speech following a stroke, and performances by the aphasia-friendly choir. 

I presented key information from the report, we launched: State of the Nation, The Speech and Language Therapy Workforce in Wales. In the report, we describe the demand for Speech and Language Therapy in our population and how this demand will be increasing in future years. Also, clinical areas that we work in currently and areas that we need to expand our work in. The current makeup of the workforce in NHS Wales, and recommendations for the future workforce in Wales. And we understand from stakeholders and members that that report has been well received, which is great. 

Overall, it was a celebratory event with a flower wall as a background for photos, cupcakes for our birthday, the Royal College exhibition displaying the photos taken which were featured in the bulletin this month, and lunch for all. 

Twenty-four out of the 60 Senedd members came and showed their support for the event, and we will be following up on their interest in our work. And overall, 80 guests enjoyed the occasion. And you can see what the venue looked like on the RCSLT Instagram reel. 

So, please do go to the RCSLT website and search for ‘State of the Nation’ to find a copy of our report, and we will be publishing updates in future years on changes to the speech and language therapy workforce in Wales. 

HOST: 0:03:53 What a great way to start the birthday year. I’m just thinking about how can people join in with these celebrations? Because it’s obviously a year-long event. 

Cara, I think this is one for you. Is there a web page where they can find out more? 

CARA: 0:04:03 Yes, there is. There’s lots happening. So, I’ll just run through some of the top-line ways that people can engage with the celebrations throughout the year. We kicked off, firstly, with a special edition of Bulletin, our membership magazine which comes out quarterly. That features some of photos from a commission that we did where we got two photographers to capture some of the big and small moments that happen in daily life of speech and language therapists. So, that’s a lovely range of photographs that we have procured. Some of those are in the magazine, and we’ll be hosting an exhibition, which has already opened at our event last week in Wales, so that was really great to see that. And that’ll be touring around the country at various different venues and events that we have throughout the year. 

We have got a series of pledges, which are featured in our magazine and also on our website, where people can sign up to agree to do eight different things throughout the year. That includes maybe doing a talk at a school about what speech and language therapists do, or a careers fair. It could be getting involved in lobbying and influencing work – some of the things like the debate that’s happening next week that Derek’s going to talk about. So, lots of things that people can do to help celebrate what speech and language therapists do and get the word out there about the impact that they have and celebrate their work. 

We’ve got a big event coming up in May, which we’ll be hosting at Southwark Cathedral, so we’re looking forward to having a special celebration there. And we’ve also produced an animation, which, again, we showcased at the event Pippa talked about, which is, what is a speech and language therapist? So, very accessible animation to help, again, explain what speech and language therapists do. That will be available and launching on our website next week. So, yeah, lots of things. 

We’ve got a specific web page on the website with lots of resources and information. We’ll be adding to that on a regular basis. And there’s also some pages as well about the history of the College, so if you wanted to find out more about how it’s evolved over the time and how it was established, you can get that information there as well, so we can put the link in there for people. 

HOST: 0:06:08 Excellent. Thank you. Might move back to Pippa now then, and wonder if we can get some updates on what’s happening in the world of policy. 

PIPPA: 0:06:15 As highlighted in our report, we are continuing to push on getting speech and language therapists embedded in all youth justice services across Wales. To that end, we continue to talk to the Chief Allied Health Professional Adviser and Justice Services in Welsh Government, as well as the Youth Justice Board, members of the Senedd, and next month’s meeting in the Ministry of Justice, utilising the lever that responsibility for decisions about youth justice is partially devolved to Wales but not fully, and there being Labour administrations in both Westminster and Cardiff Bay. 

We continue to push for more speech and language therapists to be trained in Wales, ensuring that Health Education and Improvement Wales, who commission student places, know about our work and the impact that it has, and also for sustainable funding for Speech and Language Therapy services to meet the growing demand. And the work by our small team of three in Wales and, of course, our members resulted in an opposition debate in the Senedd on Wednesday this week, so we will be following up on that too, and you can listen back to that on the Senedd website. 

We’re also starting to develop our manifesto for the Senedd election in 2026, using much of the work from the State of the Nation report. And we’re launching Allied Health Profession Federation Cymru in March, which is a great opportunity to work more strategically with our fellow Royal Colleges in Wales. 

HOST: 0:07:35 And then, Derek, I might come to you then, please. What’s happening in the rest of the UK nations? 

DEREK: 0:07:39 Pippa’s referred to the debate in the Welsh Senedd on speech and language therapy and youth justice. As we record on Friday, the 24th, we are looking forward to a debate in the House of Commons, Westminster Hall, on Monday the 27th on investment in speech and language therapy. It’s the first time since, I think, 2011 that we’ve had a specific debate in Parliament around speech and language therapy. So, we’re delighted [inaudible 0:08:08] from a petition by service user advocate Mikey Akers, and a number of MPs have shown interest in it, so we’re looking forward to the debate that is forthcoming. 

Last week, the Mental Health Reform Bill, which is a particular interest to us, was in what’s called its committee stage in the House of Lords. And a number of our supporters in the Lords moved amendments and spoke about the role of speech and language therapy in relationship to mental health. And ministers are going to have to come back to us on things, and particularly ministers said that they would talk to us about speech and language therapists, where appropriate, being what’s called a responsible clinician in mental health. So, we were pleased to get that breakthrough. 

Special Educational Needs and Disability in England – SEND – continues to be very hot in Parliament. There’s been a report by the Public Accounts Committee. There’s been yet another debate around SEND issues, with lots of MPs showing interest. 

In Scotland, we have launched our VoiceBox competition, which is the children’s joke-telling competition, which launched on Blue Monday this week, with a lot of coverage, and we’re looking forward to that through the year. 

And in the Northern Ireland context, the Northern Ireland Education Minister, who spoke at our members event in Northern Ireland in the autumn and heard what speech and language therapists had to say… and he said that the Education Department in Northern Ireland plans to prioritise a speech and language intervention program. According to him, 10,000 children to be targeted over the next three years as part of dealing with SEND there. 

So, that would be my quick round-up for this month. 

HOST: 0:09:47 Thank you very much to our guest today. Our next news podcast comes out on 24 February, so one month today. We’ll also be releasing a podcast with the winners of the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders editors prize for 2024, so that’s Kirstine Shrubsole and Emma Power, and that comes out mid-February, so look out for that one. 

A very big thank you to you for listening at home and to play us out is the aphasia-friendly choir that performed at the event at the Welsh Senedd last week. 

MUSIC PLAYS: 0:10:18-0:10:36
END OF TRANSCRIPT: 0:10:36