SEND leaders' blog

Leaders from NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire and Nottinghamshire County Council reflect on work to improve services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Nottinghamshire and the recent annual engagement meeting with Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC). 

February 2025

Rosa Waddingham, Chief Nurse at NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire:

We recently met with representatives from the CQC and Ofsted to talk about the work we’ve been doing to improve SEND services for children and young people in Nottinghamshire.

We were heartened to hear feedback that our focus on what it is like to be a child or young person with SEND in Nottinghamshire is coming through clearly in our improvement programme. This has been reflected in the work we have been doing to engage with families and coproduce our services and strategies. We are also hearing more voices of children and young people through the case studies we discuss at our Board meetings and through visits to schools and other groups.

The CQC and Ofsted representatives also praised us for the work we’ve done as a partnership to pull together data about children and young people with SEND into a live data dashboard. This is helping us to plan services around the needs of children and young people. The dashboard is also helping us to measure key outcomes such as rates of exclusions and suspensions and changes in school attainment so we can measure whether we are making a meaningful difference to their lives.

We also discussed areas where we still need to make progress. For example, waiting times for neurodevelopmental assessments are still higher than we would like. We have invested in increasing the capacity of the service, which has helped to reduce average waiting times from 68 weeks a year ago to 54 weeks. This is against a backdrop of a significant increase in referrals – 50% increase each month in comparison with the year before. We know this is still too long to wait, so we have improved the level of support for families who are waiting for an assessment. 

One of the key reflections from CQC and Ofsted representatives the meeting was the amount of enthusiasm they said we are demonstrating as a partnership to work together, make improvements and reflect the voices of families in our work.

Colin Pettigrew, Executive Director at Nottinghamshire County Council:

The recent meeting was a chance for partners to reflect, with regulators, on where the local partnership is now and how it has developed. We talked about and recognised the progress towards sustained improvements for children and young people with special educational needs and their families in Nottinghamshire.

From the very beginning of this improvement journey, we were determined to focus on what it is like to be a child or young person with SEND in Nottinghamshire and to be outcome-focused. 

Given this and the collective investment in funding, time and efforts, we are confident that improvements have been made in a number of areas, but we also know there is more still to do. As a partnership we have embedded the importance of ongoing improvement wherever possible and that is what we are striving for. 

Despite a relentless rise in demand, we have made significant progress in the number of education, health and care (EHC) assessments and EHC plans completed within timescale. 

We are reviewing the EHC assessment process to ensure it is more family-focused, collaborative and that witing times are reduced. We will also have a greater emphasis on improving the quality of EHC plans issued.

To make the experience of the initial assessment process better, we are increasing resources and changing the way that we work, including re-designing our statutory SEND services. For example, we have recruited more educational psychologists to support work on assessments. We have also set up a team of SEND pathway officers to link between schools, parents and the statutory assessment team. These colleagues support families while they wait for a decision to assess and families are positive about their support. There is now more emphasis on better communication throughout the assessment process so that families are kept aware of progress.

For those children and young people who do not require an EHC plan, we have reviewed and improved our graduated support response. We have developed with parents and carers a SEND journey map to help everyone to find the right support at the right time.

The partnership prioritises early help and meeting needs locally. We are currently rolling out family hubs across the county and they will include support for parents and carers of children and young people with SEND. 

We are confident that we have the building blocks in place to deliver better services and better outcomes for children and young people with SEND and their families in Nottinghamshire.  

November 2024

Rosa Waddingham, Chief Nurse at NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire:

It’s now just over 18 months since the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Improvement Board for Nottinghamshire was set up and during that time, I believe there has been a huge improvement in partnership working and the culture of our staff.

Prior to the CQC and Ofsted Local Area Partnership inspection in May 2023, it felt to me like we were separate organisations. We were all working hard and doing our best, but we weren’t joining our resources, looking at problems and solutions together and we weren’t talking to each other enough. This was quite correctly picked up by the inspectors and has been an area of significant focus.

We’re now worlds apart from where we were, we have relationships at every level that are positive, but established enough to support challenge and disagreement – which is essential if we want to develop and grow together. At all levels we have developed close links between our organisations and are constantly talking to each other and providing support and challenge when needed. It feels like we’re working together with a shared commitment and focus on our SEND improvement journey.  

We know that together we can build on the initial improvements to continue to deliver the change needed.

Previously, we would have looked at issues and divided them into ‘health issues’ or ‘local authority issues’. We’re now owning our problems together as a whole partnership and thinking our shared responsibility for children and young people with SEND and about how we work jointly to improve the support that they and their families receive.

One great example of this is how we have shared and brought together all of our data so we can see a full picture of where we are making a difference and where we need to make improvements. This is supported by our agreement of a joint commissioning strategy and plan across both our organisations, maximising the opportunities to both work in partnership and reduce duplication.

We have agreed as a partnership that we shouldn’t just make the improvements the CQC and Ofsted have said we need to make. We want to look at wider SEND services and make sure that sustainable improvements are made for children and young people that last beyond the lifespan of the inspection.

We have worked with partners, children and families to develop a shared set of outcomes that we are working towards so we can track whether we are genuinely making a difference to the lives of children, young people and their families. These are just the things that they have a right to expect:

•  I need to be listened to and heard
• I need to be the healthiest I can be
• I need to be safe and feel safe
• I need to be accepted and valued by people I trust
• I need to be prepared for my future
• I need to enjoy life and have fun.

This process hasn’t been easy. Budgets are tight and there has been a great deal of criticism about the SEND system needing an overhaul on a national level. But here in Nottinghamshire, we are confident that our close working relationships and our commitment to listen and involve families will support us in our continued improvement journey.

Colin Pettigrew, Executive Director at Nottinghamshire County Council:

As a partnership, we are committed to all of Nottinghamshire’s young people and families, including those with special educational needs and disabilities and want to offer the right support at the right time to achieve the best possible outcomes.

In Nottinghamshire, we’ve been determined to improve our efforts to listen to families and to invest in teams and staff where that is necessary, such as the significant investment in educational psychologists who are vital in supporting education, health and care plans. But in addition to this, we are working with partners in education to improve our support for pupils with SEND in mainstream settings as well.

We are continuing to prioritise investment in improving our SEND service and strengthening our workforce to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND in Nottinghamshire.

Working in partnership with our colleagues in health, social care, education, schools and with parents and carers is vital if we are to achieve our ambitions and  deliver the improvements that children and young people have told us they want to see. Working in this way, together, is imperative to achieve our common goals and ambitions.

Our joint approach and improvement plans means that we work closely together at all times to deliver the changes needed to support children and young people who have additional needs.

Having a clear and shared vision, I also recognise an unwavering commitment to including young people and parents and carers in all areas of work. This is the right approach and their involvement in the agreed outcomes for young people is encouraging.

By including our parents and carers and young people we make sure that the focus is always where it should be. We hear their concerns and their hopes and ambitions. With this approach and with the efforts of individuals and teams, it can lead to improved experiences and outcomes, like Anna’s involvement in co-production feeling listened to, Max’s journey to become a DJ allowing him to enjoy life and have fun, or a collaboration that helped Bawithiran prepare for his future.

We do face challenges. The ongoing increase in demand for assessments that shows no sign of reducing, some waiting times are still longer than families would expect and significant budget pressures across the system are going to continue.

We want to reassure families and young people of the partnership’s ongoing commitment to improvements for Nottinghamshire’s young people with additional needs and their families.