Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission inspected Brent children's special needs and disability provision between 27th January and 31st January 2025 and their report has now been published.
Generally the service is doing well but there are significant areas for improvement including long waits for children needing neurodevelopmental assessments, diagnosis and provision, delays in home equipment assessments needs and the timeliness and uptake of the mandated antenatal check and six- to eight-week reviews.
SUMMARY
The local area partnership’s special educational needs and/or disability (SEND)
arrangements typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The local area partnership is taking action where improvements are needed.
What is the area partnership doing that is effective?
◼ Leaders across the partnership understand very well the needs of children and young people with SEND and their families. They have high ambitions and a relentless focus to continue to improve services for children and young people who have SEND. They frequently review the experiences of children and young people and take swift action to address and manage need. There is a strong strategic partnership working, and leaders take highly effective innovative approaches to planning and supporting needs.
One example of this is the development of a new continence service, as this was previously lacking in the offer for children and young people with SEND.
◼ Leaders across the local area partnership work extremely collaboratively with children and young people with SEND, parents and carers, and key stakeholders to develop and review key strategies, policies, action plans and services. These include the Brent parent carer forum (BPCF), SEND information, advice and support service
(SENDIASS) and education partners. Leaders greatly value their feedback, contributions and involvement to improve services for children and young people with SEND. For example, the local area partnership invested to develop a fully inclusive social club requested by children and young people with SEND. The young people’s forum identified resources in the community to provide many inclusive social and leisure activities.
◼ Leaders across the partnership work well to plan and commission services jointly to meet the increasing needs of children and young people in the local area. They use data effectively to help the wider partnership identify and respond to need. This makes sure that there is a robust service to support children and young people with SEND across education, health and social care. For example, there has been significant investment in resources which includes new education provision, increasing the speech and language offer and improving the social care transitions pathway.
◼ Children and young people with SEND who access the disabled children and young people’s service receive a highly effective offer. Social workers understand the needs of children and young people with SEND very well. They provide individualised care to help keep children and young people with SEND in their local communities. When needs escalate, children and young people with SEND are provided with the right care in specialist residential settings.
◼ There is a strong commitment from leaders across the local area partnership to address health inequalities for children and young people with SEND in Brent. The local area partnership works cohesively with Brent Health Matters to provide targeted interventions to engage with families. An example of this is the proactive approach by leaders to provide information to communities for whom education is harder to access so they can educate them about SEND with the aim of reducing stigma. Further work has been carried out to improve access to oral hygiene services and raise awareness about the benefits of vaccinations for children and young people with SEND.
◼ The dynamic support register is well established and embedded across health, education and social care systems to support children and young people with SEND who are most at risk of hospital admission. Professionals from multi-agencies have effective discussions to share knowledge and raise awareness of wider support networks. These contribute to making sure the needs of children and young people with SEND are supported in a timely and appropriate manner. Children and young people with SEND who are at risk of admission to hospital or placement breakdown are referred for support from a key worker and the positive behaviour service, which are transformational for children and young people with SEND.
◼ For children and young people with SEND who are electively home educated or are educated otherwise than at school, there is a very well-coordinated approach between professionals from multi-agencies to secure positive outcomes. For example, the portage team works very effectively with the early help team to support children and their families to access services. This includes providing support to access health appointments, food banks and assessments. Children and young people with SEND who are educated otherwise than at school have a good range of packages in place to support their learning and development, which includes therapeutic support where needed.
◼ There are a range of services and support groups within Brent that provide families with support and guidance. For example, the family well-being hubs provide a range of community-led services for families and their children in areas such as education, health and well-being. SENDIASS, along with the BPCF, provide invaluable advice and support to parents they greatly appreciate.
What does the area partnership need to do better?
◼ Case officers do not update most children and young people’s education, health and care plans (EHC plan) in a timely way after annual reviews except for the most vulnerable. This means that children and young people’s plans do not accurately reflect their current needs. In most cases, any potential negative impact on children and young people with SEND is mitigated by case officers ensuring updated assessments and relevant information on a child or young person’s progress, such as social care and health reports, including annual review paperwork, are appropriately shared across the system to ensure that effective decisions are made. The lack of updating does not negatively impact the support a child or young person with SEND receives, including when they move to a new setting. Leaders have suitable plans in place to address this issue.
◼ Children and young people with SEND experience lengthy wait times for neurodevelopmental diagnostic assessments and specialist therapeutic interventions.
CAMHS have made progress to reduce the time that children and young people with SEND wait through investment in resources such as additional clinicians. For example, they use artificial intelligence to reduce the administration time taken to produce reports. Further to this, they have developed a post-diagnostic website to support those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Leaders across the partnership have suitable action plans in place to reduce the time children and young people with SEND wait for support from CAMHS.
◼ Children and young people with SEND wait too long for assessment of their home equipment needs by social services occupational therapists. This means they do not receive specialist equipment in a timely manner.
◼ Children who require an assessment by the community paediatric service experience long waits to have their needs assessed. Those who are assessed and require a neurodevelopmental diagnostic assessment, experience a further wait. Although parents are signposted to the Local Offer for parenting groups and support services, they still wait too long. Despite leaders’ efforts to reduce wait times, the current service remains unable to meet current needs.
◼ Due to capacity issues in the health visiting team, the service is not reaching desired levels of antenatal or six-week checks. This limits the opportunities for health clinicians to swiftly identify need at the earliest opportunity, although an action plan is in place to address this.
Areas for improvement
The local area partnership should update EHC plans in a timely manner after annual reviews and at significant points of transition to make sure that EHC plans reflect the current needs of the children and young people with SEND accurately.
The local area partnership should improve the timeliness and uptake of the mandated antenatal check and six- to eight-week review.
NHS North West London ICB should reduce the lengthy wait times that children and young people with SEND experience for neurodevelopmental diagnostic assessments, specialist therapeutic interventions in CAMHS, and community paediatrician assessments. The local area partnership should reduce the lengthy wait times that children and young people with SEND experience for assessments of their home equipment needs.
