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Experts at Hand: Cerebral Palsy

Answer

The department’s new Experts at Hand offer will support many children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including some children and young people with cerebral palsy attending mainstream settings, by improving access to support and expertise within those settings, while others will receive support through provision specified in their education, health and care plan. Local area partnerships are expected to draw on appropriately qualified and supervised practitioners and existing professional standards within health and education workforces to meet the needs of all children and young people with SEND.

The department is asking local area partnerships to develop a new offer of support for mainstream settings, drawing on specialist expertise across education, health and local services to meet local needs, including where condition-specific expertise is required. The department will continue to monitor data on the growth of the relevant health and education specialist workforces.

To support delivery, the department is investing over £40 million in the specialist workforce, including £26 million to train 204 EPs in 2026 and 239 in 2027, with the remaining £15 million invested to establish new speech and language therapist advanced practitioners in every Integrated Care Board geographical area, to get more Speech and Language Therapists working in educational settings. Alongside this, the department is investing £200 million in SEND and inclusion training to upskill staff in every school, college and nursery. We will continue to monitor implementation as the programme develops.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

33566

Session

2026-27

Grouped for answer

Yes

Subjects

Cerebral palsy Experts at Hand

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk