Berkshire councils to join forces on child therapy services
The Reading, Wokingham and West Berkshire councils hope the move will save money and improve services
Last updated 14th Dec 2021
Three councils are coming together to provide crucial mental health therapy services for children.
Reading, Wokingham and West Berkshire councils have agreed to search for an organisation to provide mental health services such as occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapies to children.
These therapy methods are provided to children and young people up to the age of 19 with Education Health and Care (EHC) Plans.
All three councils currently employ the Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust to provide these services under separate agreements.
Now, it has been agreed that the councils work together to find a provider for these services from March 2022 onwards, with the search for the provider being led by Wokingham Borough Council.
The new agreement was discussed at a meeting of Wokingham Borough Council’s executive committee.
Councillor Laura Blumenthal (Conservative, South Lake), the deputy executive member for equalities, poverty, the arts and the climate emergency asked why the council is working together with Reading and West Berkshire.
Cllr Grahame Howe (Conservative, Remenham, Wargrave and Ruscombe), the executive member for answered: “There’s a lot of specialists involved in delivering this service, if we had been doing it individually it would be expensive to put together and manage, but also we might find ourselves competing for the services of those specialists with our adjacent authorities, and therefore it makes sense with such a specialisation to collaborate.”
The executive committee unanimously agreed to search for a provider for the child therapy sevices on Thursday, November 25.
The service is estimated to cost Wokingham Borough Council £389,520 per year.
Meanwhile, Reading Borough Council is investing more in the young person’s therapeutic services, spending £412,863 on the services in 2021/22 through its children’s services company Brighter Futures for Children.
A spokesman for Brighter Futures for Children said: “Brighter Futures for Children (BFfC), Wokingham Borough Council and West Berkshire Council currently individually commission Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust to provide their Children and Young People’s Integrated Therapy (CYPIT) services.
“We are pleased to be working together to procure this service jointly to achieve a more efficient and better value service, while continuing to provide quality provision for the children and young people of Reading.”
BFfC was established in December 2018.
In September of this year, the council and BFfC apologised after an investigation found that a boy was left for months without adequate speech and language therapy.
The mother of the boy ended up receiving £200 in compensation to remedy the stress that the ordeal caused.
West Berkshire Council has not currently responded to a request for comment.