Updates about our SEND improvements

Sign up to our SEND newsletter.

We want to keep families well informed and updated about the local area priorities for special educational needs and disabilities services in Nottinghamshire. This page will provide honest and transparent information about the rate of referrals and how services are responding.

This SEND improvement plan on a page [PDF] is a summary of the areas we are focusing on for Nottinghamshire children, young people and families. 

You can help us improve SEND services by filling in this form.

Update on the improvement journey  

NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire have been working with Nottinghamshire County Council on improving Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) support for children and young people in Nottinghamshire. This follows a local area inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission early last year.

The partnership recognises that it still has a lot of work to do, but some of the improvements made since the inspection, up to December 2023, include

• More families are receiving Education, health and care plans (EHCP) within timescales (increase from 4.5% to 28.3%).
• Reduction in the number of children and young people waiting for educational psychology education and health care needs assessments (from 488 to 359).
• Providing more support for families through the development of a new SEND educational pathway officer role, with three officers already in post and two more currently being recruited. These officers provide dedicated one-to-one support to families and educational settings, helping them understand and better navigate their way through applying and accessing special educational needs (SEN) support.
• Increased support for children in education. There has been a 20% increase in ‘High Needs Funding’ agreed for the current academic year 2023/24, to support children and young people with special educational needs in mainstream school settings.
• Greater focus on ensuring annual reviews are completed on time.
• Reviewing all service provision and better sharing of data between partners to ensure gaps or duplication in services are identified and performance is monitored more effectively.
• Joint commissioning of Speech, Language and Communication Need services is in place for early years and will be expanded to include services for children over 5 from April 2024.
• Additional speech and language therapists are now in post to reduce the time children and families wait.
• An extensive review of the neurodevelopmental pathway has resulted in recruiting additional staff, which means that children and families are now waiting less time for an assessment.

Colin Pettigrew, Corporate Director for Children and Families, Nottinghamshire County Council and Rosa Waddingham, Chief Nurse at NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, said: “The SEND Partnership is much stronger now and we are passionate about making positive changes for children and young people with SEND and their families. We’ve made some positive strides, but we know we still have more to do.

“We want to improve the way we engage with families and we’re calling for parents, carers, children and young people to get involved in how SEND services are developed. We also need to get the message out that SEND is everyone’s responsibility and we plan to engage effectively with the workforce to drive forward more improvements.”

Updated 2/2/2024.