Therapies
Therapies
Children and Young People’s Integrated Therapies Service
Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust provides Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy. We see children and young people from birth to age 19 who live in Buckinghamshire or have a Buckinghamshire GP. We offer information, training, advice, assessment and ongoing therapy as appropriate.
Our services are delivered in a range of settings including home, educational and healthcare settings around the county. We work in partnership with families, early years settings, schools, the iSEND service and other professionals to ensure children and young people can access the right support from a therapist at the time when they need it most.
Further information on the services we provide
The team has worked through a range of transformation activities since our recommissioning in the 2024 Spring term. This ensures that the service is delivered in line with the new contract which is underpinned by the Early Identification and Intervention to Better Support Children and Young People’s Therapy Needs.
Support for schools
Messaging service for settings in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust has introduced a quick and easy way for school setting staff to get in touch with Children and Young People’s Integrated Therapies.
SENCOs, teachers, key workers and support staff in schools can now send a message to TherapyLink Buckinghamshire. They will get confidential help and advice about the following:
- Occupational Therapy
- Physiotherapy
- Speech and Language Therapy.
The messaging service will be available:
- Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays)
- 9am to 4pm
To contact the service, message 07312 263754. An automated reply confirms the message been received. A CYPIT Link Worker will reply to the message within 2 working.
This is not an emergency service. Urgent help should be sought from an NHS walk-in centre or by calling NHS 111. In an emergency, dial 999 or go to A&E.
The service is run by the Children and Young People’s Integrated Therapies and powered by the award-winning messaging platform, ChatHealth. This has been implemented at several NHS Trusts and healthcare organisations across the UK.
Promotional materials will be distributed to schools soon to advertise the service. Further information about the service can be found at www.chathealth.nhs.uk to start a chat with the local messaging service.
Core training offer
We have worked with our partners to build a coordinated training offer for education settings and parents/carers. This includes a wide breadth of training from a range of health and education professionals in lots of different formats. This includes:
- online
- face to face
- on demand
- live delivered
Information on how to access this will be circulated in due course.
Pre-record webinars
We have expanded the pre-recorded webinars on our website. We now have an amazing suite of bitesize training based on feedback from education settings and parents/carers.
SpeechLink 'Communication Champions'
We have worked with Speechlink Multimedia to develop an exciting new initiative. It is being launched to support a whole school approach for:
- speech,
- language,
- and communication needs for all settings that use SpeechLink packages.
The Communication Champion in each school will receive exclusive offers and support. This is to ensure they have the knowledge and skills to find the necessary information, support and advice to share with:
- staff
- pupils
- parents
An introductory webinar will show how to sign up so that you can begin to receive Communication Champion information. This will run on Thursday 26 September from 2pm to 2:45pm. Register via the Speech and Language Link portal.
Recordings will be available so that staff can access these throughout the year.
Communication and engagement
Timely ECHNA advice submission
We have streamlined our processes to submit therapy advice for EHCNA requests. This is to ensure children have timely and meaningful EHCPs. It will also mean that education settings and parents/carers have our clinical advice from the point of triage at SEND Forums. These processes mean needs can be supported within the setting before having a settings-based assessment (where required with our service).
New Communication and Engagement Team
We have appointed a Communication and Engagement Lead. They will oversee Link Therapy Workers to form a small team of non-clinical colleagues.
Feedback provided highlighted that it's not always easy to:
- find what we offer.
- access the team
As this team starts to onboard it will enable us to communicate and promote our service offer more effectively, thus supporting early intervention. They will also help us build on the work we already have in place in service user engagement. We will continue to use lived experience to inform the co-production of our services.
Link Therapist whole school approach
Based on feedback from education settings and parents/carers, we know that having consistent clinician support in your setting is important. We will be implementing a link therapist whole school approach model. This will provide support across universal, targeted, and specialist levels. This model will allow us to provide consistency. Settings will have a point of contact in the clinical team, alongside an allocated Link Therapy Worker, to support with accessing our service.
We are aware there are children with therapy provision on their plans who have not had face-to-face contact from our team. We will ensure that all children have their needs fully reviewed so that appropriate clinical support is put in place. Our clinical team will be making contact with you to arrange this.
Expanding our service delivery
Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapy are offered to Pupil Referral Units and SALT to Additionally Resourced Provisions. We are increasing our service offer to support with OT and SALT in:
- PRUs
- SALT in ARPs
If you have any queries or concerns please contact us on the following:
- Email: Buc-tr.cyptherapies@nhs.net
- Phone: 01296 838000
- Visit our website