Waiting Lists Are Falling - But Not for Children Who Need Speech and Language Therapy

Today the Government has been celebrating significant reduction in waiting lists, with 'waiting lists in 20 areas falling three times faster than the national average'. 

But behind the headlines lies an uncomfortable question: Who is being counted? And who is being left out?

The 'Further Faster 20' programme sits within the Government's elective reform plan which 'covers a broad range of planned, non-emergency services including tests, scans, outpatient appointments, surgery and cancer treatment'. 

Siva Anandaciva, Director of Policy, Events and Partnerships at The King's Fund has said:

"It is a good thing that waiting lists in parts of England are coming down. But the reality check is that the overall hospital waiting list in England stood at 7.5 million last year and has only fractionally fallen to 7.4 million despite a full year of funding, energy and focus from the government and NHS. While progress is happening, it is slow going and the government’s ambition to cut hospital waiting times is hanging in the balance at best."  

It is genuinely positive that some patients are waiting less time for hospital treatment. Hospital services matter.

But improvement in one part of the system does not mean the system as a whole is recovering. For community services - and particularly for children and families waiting for speech and language therapy - the picture looks very different.

Last week, Andrew Lewin, MP for Welwyn Labour, recently tabled a written question asking the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, 'what steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of people waiting for NHS treatment'.

Karin Smyth, MP for Bristol South and Minster of State for DHSC responded "We know how important it is to patients and clinicians that they receive and deliver treatment faster. Our Elective Reform Plan is working. Waiting lists are down over 225,000 since we came to office. We delivered 5.2 million extra appointments in our first year; double what we promised. The NHS is on the road to recovery, saving and transforming more lives through record investment, innovation and modernisation."

There was no mention of community services. 

This matters because for many children and families, community services are not an optional extra - they are the frontline of care, providing essential and ongoing support.

What does the road to recovery look like for children's speech and language therapy? 

While recent months have seen a reduction in the total number of children waiting, more children and young people are waiting for speech and language therapy than at this point last year - 65,567 compared to 65,114.

And whilst the numbers don't tell us everything, they don't currently offer much promise of change. There has been little movement across each of the waiting periods - presenting a picture of a system under pressure, rather than one on the verge of recovery.

(Note: In November 2024 the figures for waits over 52 weeks were presented together, so we we do not know how many of children and young people were waiting more than 104 weeks).

There have been some strong verbal commitments to improving access to community services, including speech and language therapy. There is also some promising work going on in this space, including a co-produced project commissioned by The Office of the Chief Allied Health Profession's Office at NHS England and led by NHS Elect to develop a toolkit to reduce waiting times. 

While these initiatives are welcome, they are not enough. 

The continued silence on the previously promised SLT action plan is unacceptable, particularly given the strong statements of support for the campaigning of Mikey Akers' during the Invest in SLT debate. 

If the Government’s ambition is truly an NHS “on the road to recovery”, community services - and children’s speech and language therapy in particular - must be on the map. We need a clear direction, we need efforts to extend beyond time-limited projects and we need to measure services on outcomes, not outputs.

Resources

Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and The Rt Hon Wes Streeting (2026) Press release: Waiting lists cut 3 times faster in highest joblessness areas. Available at:https://www.gov.uk/government/news/waiting-lists-cut-three-times-faster-in-highest-joblessness-areas [Accessed 15 January 2026]

Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England (2025) Reforming Elective Care for Patients. Available at: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/reforming-elective-care-for-patients.pdf [Accessed 15 January 2026]

RCSLT (2026) Toolkit to support NHS services to reduce waiting times for children and young people. Available at: https://www.rcslt.org/news/toolkit-to-support-nhs-services-to-reduce-waiting-times-for-children-and-young-people/ [Accessed 15 January 2026]

The King's Fund (2026) The King's Fund responds to news government has cut NHS waiting lists faster in areas of highest joblessness. Available at: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/press-releases/response-news-gov-cut-nhs-waiting-lists-faster-areas-highest-joblessness?utm_term=thekingsfund&utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social [Accessed 15 January 2026]

UK Parliament (2026) Health Services: Waiting Lists UIN 907242, tabled on 7 January 2026. Available at: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2026-01-07/907242 [Accessed 15 January 2026]

About WAIT-UP SLT

WAIT-UP SLT is a research project focused on understanding the experiences of waiting within children's speech and language therapy (SLT) services in England. The project aims to explore these experiences from the perspectives of speech and language therapy teams, parents, caregivers, and children and young people, specifically addressing the gap in knowledge about the subjective experiences of those waiting for and within SLT services. Follow our work and find out more via Linktree: https://linktr.ee/waitupslt

WAIT UP SLT © 2026 by Gillian Rudd is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0