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Speech and Language Therapy: Children

Answer

Community health services, including children’s speech and language therapy services, are locally commissioned to enable systems to best meet the needs of their communities.

In the Devon Integrated Care Board area, the average waiting time between referral and the start of National Health Service speech and language therapy for children aged zero to 11 years old is 68 weeks in Devon and Torbay and 24 weeks in Plymouth.

In Devon and Torbay there are currently 2,574 children and young people aged zero to 18 years old waiting for speech and language therapy services, 1,978 of which are aged zero to 11 years old.

In Plymouth there are currently 648 children and young people aged zero to 18 years old waiting for speech and language therapy services, 602 of which are aged zero to 11 years old.

We have set clear ambitions for community health services through our Medium-Term Planning Framework. By 2028/29 at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks, bringing community health services in line with targets for elective care.

In 2025, we published Standardising Community Health Services which provides an overview of core community health services. Setting clear expectations of the core community health services ICBs should be providing will support consistent delivery of community health services and effective commissioning, and improve patient access to care.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

17465

Session

2026-27

Grouped for answer

Yes

Subjects

Children Devon Speech and language therapy

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk