TAs have to perform high-risk healthcare because of cuts
With NHS and social care services support overstretched, education staff have been left to carry out complex healthcare procedures for students, write two leaders in the special schools sector
In the face of increasingly constrained funding, special schools across the country are compelled to scrutinise every expenditure.
And this pertains to the high-needs funding received by students on education, health and care plans (EHCPs).
Many special educational needs (SEN) schools have pupils with unique and complex medical needs necessitating the support of health and social care services.
The original intention behind EHCPs was for these services to cater to the health and social care needs of students, allowing educators to focus on teaching.
TAs doing high-risk healthcare procedures
However, as funding for health and social care services has dwindled, schools are now often tasked with complex health procedures, typically delegated to teaching assistants.
For example, in many settings teaching assistants are performing high-risk procedures such as catheterisation, respiratory care, tracheostomy care and changes, and enteral feeds.
With these procedures being handed over to schools because of pressures on health services, many staff members have been left to perform complex tasks without supervision.
Many student health care plans lack detail about the expectations of health service support, leading to a lack of adequate funding and on-site health provision to meet these health needs. After all, educators are not clinicians.
Lack of NHS support
Consequently, despite the Department for Education’s high-needs funding policy stating that funding should not be used to provide healthcare in schools, this has become the day-to-day reality for many schools.
Educational resources, both funding and personnel, are being redirected from education towards healthcare services.
Some schools may have employed nurses to assist with such procedures. However, with a lack of support from health services, these nurses lack access to health systems and are often without clinical support from NHS services.
This situation is unacceptable. Pupils with complex medical needs have a legal right to an education just like any other student.
The postcode lottery
Unfortunately, discussions with fellow members of the National Network of Special Schools (NNoSS)reveal that this is happening across England, with the complexities and inconsistencies of high-needs funding creating a fragmented system in which schools are trying their best to operate
Integrated care boards (ICBs) do not have a standard model for supporting education, leading to a postcode lottery as to whether SEN schools will receive adequate health services to support students.
Of course, the NHS, like educational institutions, is operating on tighter budgets and facing pressing challenges.
However, offloading much of its work on to schools, which often involves delegation to teaching assistants, is asking too much.
The support system needs to be adequately funded so that each element - health, social care and education - can play its part in helping children. If not, we risk a generation of children being left without the support they need to benefit from a truly inclusive education.
Pauline Aitchison is deputy director of Schools North East and network lead for the NNoSS
The article has been co-written by the business manager of a special school who is an advisory board member for the NNoSS
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