NHS is refusing treatment to children attending private schools.

It’s pretty clear that legislation is in place and maybe it’s there for a good reason.

It’s very clear though the DM headlines were very misleading

LizzieDrip - Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!!!!

Thank you growstuff for your sensible, factual post.

No hyperbole; no outrage; no disgust … just the truth and facts. If only the media would follow your lead🙈

love0c

Growstuff I was implying 'morally criminal'. I have very strong feelings regards fair play.

In that case, the law needs to change. That's more difficult than it might appear. Since the Conservative changes of 2011, everything in the NHS has to be commissioned - that means everything the NHS does has to be accountable to some budget or other. It would mean changing the whole financing structure of the NHS.

Local authorities and academies commission and pay for therapy services such as speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy. Local authorities and academies are only responsible for the children they educate, not those who go to private schools, unless a private school is named on an EHC plan.

Growstuff I was implying 'morally criminal'. I have very strong feelings regards fair play.

love0c

Maremia Look at the BBC! They have had to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds due to the lies they have put out. I have read another article on this, reporting on the actual cases of the children denied treatment on the NHS due to them being privately educated. If true, utterly abhorrent and criminal! I await to read further news.

No, it's not criminal. Hospitals offering services such as the one in the article are following the law to the letter (as laid out in the Conservative's Children and Families Act, 2014). If they didn't do that, they would be the ones breaking the law. State schools commission the services via their local authorities or academy groups.

Maremia Look at the BBC! They have had to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds due to the lies they have put out. I have read another article on this, reporting on the actual cases of the children denied treatment on the NHS due to them being privately educated. If true, utterly abhorrent and criminal! I await to read further news.

It was the 2014 Children and Families Act, brought in by the Conservatives, which laid out the rules for the commissioning of healthcare for children with SEND.

* Mail on Sunday.

Thank you Wyllow3.
When parents sign the contract to join a particular school they enter into an agreement which states that the school will provide that child with an all-around education. That does not include additional support and assessments that are done at the discretion of the Headteacher. Parents usually have to pay for these themselves, which is fair. The issue is that some schools cannot then provide the required support and are not obliged, as per the contract, to do so.
There's a whole law book for private schools on all these issues with past cases setting the precedent. I guess that is to protect independent schools from the demands of parents such as these in the DM.

As a point of accuracy this article was in today’s Mail on Sunday, not the Daily Mail although of course they are sister newspapers.

There you are, there are two Mail papers for some of you to get in a froth about !
Meanwhile the award-winning Daily Mail is still the top selling newspaper in this country.
Obviously though all of us who read it are fully signed up far-right racists !

You do misread things eazybee. You may know someone who uses this comment in a negative way, but to me it means that we should always be cautious about information, where-ever it comes from, but never ever reject the potential truth of something, just because we object to the politics of the source until it has been checked, nor accept the truth of anything published in a publication whose politics we believe in, unitl it too has been verified

My DiL suffers from hypermobility, and I have a friend who used to deal with people with the severe form of this disability, where they dislocate joints on almost a weekly basis and can be wheelchair bound as a result. My DiL has suffered from arthritis since she was in her early 40s as a result of having this disability.

I would say hypermobility is a physical need which impacts on education, ie handwriting. A former pupil was assessed with this condition some years ago, and advice and support was forthcoming immediately,from whence I cannot say. I heard this story on television news this morning, no idea which channel and it reminded me of the difficulties this child experienced.
Whether children attend a state school or a private one, the parents still contribute via their taxes to the state, paying twice for education and save the state money by not occupying a state school place.
This comment about the Daily Mail:
this wholesale refusal to accept anything the DM publishes on any subject is quite disturbing, It is a classic far left/right way of dealing with uncomfortable facts.
...is a tactic used by the chairman of a discussion group I attend who uses this attack any time he is presented with uncomfortable facts, sneering at the speaker in an attempt to put him on the defensive. It is very tiresome, and also very childish.

Well as far as I can tell, this child has physical problems which are not being addressed by the NHS.

That is a failure on the part of the NHS.

Cossy

So it’s clear this child, along with other privately educated children, do not meet the criteria for local authority funded treatment or assessments. This is as it should be, as unfair as it sounds, local authorities, who receive and distribute school funding in most cases, would not receive funding for private school children.

It makes sense, though sounds unfair.

Exactly. One of our grandchildren is very bright but ADHT with reading difficulties. At an excellent private school but all the assessments had to be done privately and paid for, same for specialist help. Totally fair.

escaped

I have also reread what is available, and a bit more.
Interestingly, IF this is the prep school hinted at in the papers, then categorically, No pupils in the school have an education, health and care plan. This is stated in the recent inspection.
It is not unusual for an independent school not to have children with EHCPs for a variety of reasons. This doesn't mean that a school
hasn't identified a number of pupils as requiring support for special educational needs and/or disabilities.

I am inclined to agree that there might be a parent at odds with the school/hospital here, and that contacting the DM was her way of complaining.

Sure, the mother was trying to force their hand with "bad publicity". Thank you for your clarity escaped.

So it’s clear this child, along with other privately educated children, do not meet the criteria for local authority funded treatment or assessments. This is as it should be, as unfair as it sounds, local authorities, who receive and distribute school funding in most cases, would not receive funding for private school children.

It makes sense, though sounds unfair.

PS..and a struggling, unhappy child is not what anyone wants.

I sent a few packing in my time!
Put very politely, the school could not respond to the needs of the child. It's a hard call, but no one would think very highly of you taking £thousands off parents each year and not being able to meet the required levels of support. It's better to be upfront.

They no st probably have been. I was told categorically by a head one of mine couldn’t attend

😃

escaped

I'm surprised that the parent doesn't have a sufficiently good relationship with the child's prep school to keep this out of the papers. They usually work in partnership.
I'm not saying it should be kept quiet if something is really amiss, but it is fake news to present it in such a negative way.

Probably been quietly asked to find an alternative school!

I have also reread what is available, and a bit more.
Interestingly, IF this is the prep school hinted at in the papers, then categorically, No pupils in the school have an education, health and care plan. This is stated in the recent inspection.
It is not unusual for an independent school not to have children with EHCPs for a variety of reasons. This doesn't mean that a school
hasn't identified a number of pupils as requiring support for special educational needs and/or disabilities.

I am inclined to agree that there might be a parent at odds with the school/hospital here, and that contacting the DM was her way of complaining.

I asked Lady Google, 'Has the Daily Mail ever had to retract a story?'
The reply was,
'Yes the Daily Mail has been requrired to retract or correct stories in the past..'
Now, I am sure other papers have had to deal with this issue, but that was not the whole statement.
Here is the rest of the statement from Google,
'...and has faced legal action for false or misleading reporting.'

Lathyrus3

I have reread what is available.

As far as I can gather the mother is nit requesting medical intervention via the GP. She is requesting provision to meet the child’s educational needs. Presumably in school. For this to happen an assessment of educational need has to take place. Otherwise how do you know what to provide.

The responsibility for carrying this out rests with the school.

The letter from the Health authority says that once this has been carried out and the child has an EHCP then treatment is available in the same way that it is for any other child.

There’s really no need for all this. Just get the assessment done.

Absolutely. And we wonder why people complain about the Daily Mail when it's feeding the public such rubbish by either not investigating fully, or by deliberately missing out information. Is it another case of mother contacts DM in order to make something happen?