Child and Adolecent Mental Health : Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board

Mrs A’s complaint related to her son’s (“B”) lack of access to speech and language therapy, and other services, since his first referral to Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s Speech and Language Therapy service (“the SLT service”) in November 2015. Specifically, Mrs A complained that the Health Board had failed to provide her son with proper access to speech and language therapy despite 4 separate referrals to the SLT service. She also complained that the failure to carry out appropriate SLT assessments meant that her son was unable to access further services, for example, the Neurodevelopmental Team and the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, which would have also identified autism spectrum disorder (“ASD”) at an earlier stage.

The Ombudsman found that the Health Board had provided appropriate access to speech and language therapy to B and that although there were some limited shortcomings in the SLT service’s discharge process, these did not materially affect the adequacy of B’s provision. The Ombudsman also found that the SLT service had appropriately engaged with other services and that there was no evidence to suggest that B’s ASD diagnosis had been avoidably delayed. As a result, the Ombudsman did not uphold the complaints.