RCSLT - Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists

RCSLT News November 2025: NHS news, oracy, waiting times, Scottish Advanced Practice guidance for AHPs, assistive dying and more

• The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists • Season 6 • Episode 18

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In our update this month Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the RCSLT covers:

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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.

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Transcript Name: 

RCSLT News November 2025

 

Transcript Date: 

21 November 2025 

 

Speaker Key (delete/anonymise if not required): 

HOST:                         VICTORIA HARRIS 

DEREK:                      DEREK MUNN 

 


MUSIC PLAYS: 0:00:00-0:00:09 

 

HOST:                         0:00:09 Hello. It’s Wednesday, 19 November. I’m Vicky Harris, Head of Learning at the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, and I’m joined by my colleague, Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs. We’re here to catch up on news relating to speech and language therapy, as we do every month. 

 

I couldn’t help but notice that the NHS has been making headlines in recent weeks. I wonder if you can explain a bit more about what that might mean for speech and language therapy. 

 

DEREK:                      0:00:35 Yes, in terms of the government’s grid, as they call it, of stories they want to lead the news last week, it was meant to be NHS England – it got blown off course by some other political matters. And it was an interesting one, Vicky, because it was trying to make a virtue of necessity. It was talking about shifting a billion pounds from the back office to the front line. What it was, in effect, was announcing that the money had been found for large-scale redundancies amongst NHS England staff. 

 

The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, recognised that those people work hard, recognised indirectly that a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. But it was an interesting sell to say, we’ve found money for redundancy payments, and package it as all this money shift to the front line in terms of service provision. 

 

Obviously, we’ve spoken previously about the fact that there is this human cost to people losing jobs, but also that there is undoubtedly duplication between the Department of Health and NHS England, and sometimes people not working together or conflicting messages. 

 

For us, it’s about protecting what matters. There are things that NHS England do, the important work around children’s services, bits and pieces. Susanne Rastrick, the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer of England, is passionate about the work she’s done on equity and diversity, about work that’s been done on sustainability, and we just need to make sure that that stuff gets protected in the merger of NHS England into the Department of Health. 

 

The other thing is that the consultation period for the workforce plan, which follows on the 10 years plan, has closed. We put in a substantial response to the workforce plan consultation. They were looking for evidence and examples, as opposed to rhetoric. They have announced that the workforce plan will now be delayed into the year or the spring. 

 

HOST:                         0:02:40 It’s a busy time at the moment. What are the top things you’d like to share this month? 

 

DEREK:                      0:02:43 Yeah, it’s been an incredibly busy month, and I’ll run through a number of things, if I may. In terms of the big ones where we’ve had an impact, which we’re pleased about, first one is the curriculum review, where we’d worked with Speech Language UK and an organisation called Oracy 21 to promote the need and value of spoken language in the curriculum. And we’re disappointed by the interim findings of the project. We were very pleased when the final curriculum came out. 

 

The definition of oracy, pretty much the one that we asked for, along with our partners, around speaking, listening, communication, it mentions nonverbal, it mentions sign language, it mentions AAC, all included in a definition of oracy, which is exactly what we’ve be looking for from an inclusion point of view. They also talk about an oracy framework for teachers, and guidance going forward around SEND in this area. So, we’re very pleased with the outcome of the curriculum review in respect of spoken language. 

 

Second area where we were pleased that we were able to make an impact was the Chief Medical Officer’s report on health in prison, probation, and the secure estate, where one of our colleagues, Claire Moser, met with Chris Ritchie, a number of times, and references to speech, language and communication, speech and language Therapy throughout Chris Ritchie’s report on the prisoner state health, which is good. 

 

And the last area we were pleased about was the new NICE guideline on rehabilitation for chronic neurological disorder, including brain injury, and again, we were able to respond favourably to the references in speech and language therapy that are in that NICE guidance. 

 

HOST:                         0:04:33 Is there anything else you’d like to share? 

 

DEREK:                      0:04:35 Yes, this will be a bit of a mixed bag. Vicky. I’m going to talk to you in good news and bad news within England and other parts of the UK, and a little bit beyond the UK, actually. 

 

First thing I’ll mention, which is the not so good thing, the latest waiting times for England, significant increases on the adult side, both month on month and year on year, so we are going to try and make a bit of noise about that. 

 

There’s been some progress – short-term progress, at least – on children’s waits, but the adult waiting lists are quite startling in their increase, so we are going to try and draw attention to that fact. 

 

Good news in Scotland with guidance coming out from the government there on advanced practitioners – for all AHPS, but a lot of references to speech and language therapy within that, so we’re pleased to see that substantive development on advanced practice in Scotland. 

 

Those involved, Mikey Akers and other people with lived experience who lead the work on the Invest in SLT petition to the UK Parliament, and we were pleased on their behalf to put up a progress report 18 months after their original parliamentary petition. We are still awaiting the promised plan that the then minister had said when we met him in the spring. There’s been a change of minister, and obviously we’re writing to the new ministers after the wee reshuffled that there was. 

 

A couple more things. We have put out a statement on the role of speech and language therapy in care homes, and that’s a tool which we hope people can use to make the case for speech and language therapy being provided into care homes, not only on the swallowing side but also on the communication side, wherever you are. 

 

And lastly, assisted dying, which, obviously, potentially has big implications for the profession in terms of different aspects of our role. There are a number of bits of legislation going on in different jurisdictions. The first one that’s going to be implemented is actually in Jersey – the states of Jersey. Views differ about whether the Channel Islands are technically part of the UK or not. 

 

But members of the Royal College are working in the in Jersey, and the government of Jersey have got in touch asking if we want to talk about the legislation there, which is due to come in in February. We’re going to seek that meeting because it will be a helpful pointer. 

 

There’s similar legislation in the Isle of Man, in Scotland, and in England and Wales and being able to talk through how assisted dying is going to be implemented in Jersey will enable us to begin to think about some of those insurance issues, practice issues, ethical issues which are going to matter to speech and language therapists. 

 

HOST:                         0:07:15 I understand that there are some events coming up that listeners may be interested in. 

 

DEREK:                      0:07:19 Yes, we're very pleased people have used the 80th anniversary of the Royal College this year to promote. I was at an event at Birmingham City University last week. As we record today, there’s going to be a big event at Betsi Cadwalladr University Health Board in North Wales. Emma Donaldson, the chair of our board, will be there to celebrate the 80th anniversary and launch the state of the nation work we did around speech and language therapy and where it’s at in in Wales to launch that in the north of the country. Pleased with that. And obviously, it is my solemn duty to ask listeners with one week to go as we record to make sure, if you haven’t already, that you register for the RCSLT online conference, and if you have, go and check out the online platform and get involved in some of the conversations in advance. 

 

HOST:                         0:08:08 I will put a link to the conference in the notes. If you haven’t already booked, you can take a look. 

 

I just want to end by telling listeners about a podcast we’ve done recently, which is about awake craniotomy, interviewing an SLT and a neurosurgeon and a person with lived experience, and as well, one of our senior project managers who’s been involved in awake craniotomy guidance which has just come out. That’s a really good listen. I will put a link to that in the notes. 

 

Just to be aware that the next news podcast is on 16 December, so thank you very much. 

 

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