Background Information

The Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital, a division of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, is the largest postgraduate teaching and reseach institution for Otolaryngology and Audiological Medicine in the country, and has earned an international reputation as a centre of excellence. The Nuffield Hearing and Speech Centre (part of the directorate of Audiological Medicine) is a major national resource for the diagnosis and treatment of hearing, speech and language disorders in children.

The Nuffield Speech and Language Unit at Ealing is a vital and integral part of the care provided by the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital.

The Nuffield Speech and Language Unit

The Nuffield Speech and Language Unit has been providing intensive, specialist speech and language therapy and teaching since 1971. The children attending the Unit are aged 4-7 years and experience such severe difficulties that their needs cannot be met by local provision.

There are places for up to 14 children, and the typical length of stay is 2 years. Children have statements of special educational need, and are generally funded jointly by their local health and education authorities. Education authorities which have supported children at the Unit since 1998 include Barnet, Camden, City of London, Enfield, Harrow, Hillingdon, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Merton, Oxfordshire, Richmond, Westminster, Ealing, and Kingston Upon Thames.

Aims

The Unit aims to accelerate the acquisition of speech, language and literacy skills by means of intensive, specialist intervention, whilst supporting the overall development, education and well-being of each child.

Staffing

The Unit is staffed by a multidisciplinary team, including very experienced specialist staff from three disciplines: speech therapy, teaching and nursery nursing. All staff work closely together to ensure optimal progress for each child.

The overall staffing levels for teaching and speech and language therapy are high. For 12 children, the Unit has:

2.5 teachers
2.0 speech and language therapists
1.0 nursery nurse
0.1 occupational therapist

This allows frequent, intensive and flexible support for the children, including levels of therapy which are very much greater than those typically offered to children in local provision.

In addition, the Unit is able to access the specialist speech and language therapy, audiological, medical and psychological services of the Nuffield Hearing and Speech Centre.

(Reproduced with kind permission of the Nuffield Hearing and Speech Centre, Copyright NHSC)