A livid mother has accused the NHS of ‘prejudice’ after her eight-year-old son was refused treatment for a speech defect because he is at private school.
She said the Government’s ‘envy politics’ were creating a climate of discrimination against private school families.
The mother-of-four, 50, from near Horsham, West Sussex, said she ‘had steam coming out of my ears’ when she found her youngest child’s ‘routine’ referral was refused by their local hospital because of where he went to school.
‘We live in West Sussex, have a West Sussex GP and as far as I’m concerned our children’s local West Sussex independent school is a mainstream school,’ she said. ‘It is grossly unfair and prejudicial not to treat him just because he goes to a private school.
‘There is an assumption that because we are paying independent school fees, we can afford to pay for everything.
‘What is the point of paying taxes, national insurance and everything else if we can’t access the services that we are supposed to be paying towards?’
Her case is another example of prejudice towards private pupils in the NHS uncovered by The Mail on Sunday this year.
We exposed how another eight-year-old boy was refused treatment for a debilitating joint condition by Kingston Hospital in south-west London because he went to private school.
Horsham Hospital has been accused of refusing to treat a child’s speech problem because he goes to private school
A mother in Somerset revealed her autistic daughter was refused access to NHS mental health services after she was told ‘if you can afford private school fees, you can afford to pay privately’.
We also told of young cancer patients at an Edinburgh hospital being refused tutoring unless they paid an ‘extortionate’ fee because they went to a private school.
The West Sussex mother visited her local GP a month ago because her son’s speech defect, which causes a lisp and difficulty forming some letters, had not improved by his eighth birthday.
‘I wanted to know if he needed medical intervention because two of my older children had been tongue-tied at birth and had procedures to correct it,’ she said.
‘My son might only be eight but I didn’t want him to get older and be picked on if it wasn’t resolved.’
But instead of an expected appointment at the NHS-run Children’s Speech and Language Therapy Service at nearby Horsham Hospital, she received a text message from her GP last week saying: ‘The speech and language department have indicated they cannot accept his referral as he attends an independent school.’
She said: ‘I was livid. I spoke to someone at the hospital who said the service was joint-funded by West Sussex County Council and the NHS but that is no excuse for excluding someone because of where they go to school. We pay into the system. How is this fair?’
The mother, who runs an equestrian business from home, said they now face paying privately for a diagnosis and treatment sessions which could cost several thousand pounds.
The West Sussex mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, visited her local GP a month ago because her son’s speech defect had not improved by his eighth birthday (Stock Image)
The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists says speech disorders can have a long-lasting impact on children if not treated as soon as possible.
The mother said she had wanted the children to be educated in the state sector, as she had been, but they went to a local private school because their education suffered during Covid.
She believes parents opting for private education should be able to take the allocated state school funding for their child with them if they face such prejudice.
‘There is this huge misconception about the families that use private schools, that they are all attended by very, very wealthy people. They are not,’ she said.
She added: ‘This is a typical Labour Government, wanting to dumb everyone down. It is envy politics and it is dripping down and infecting the NHS.’
The Chief Executive of Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, Siobhan Melia, was named this year as one of the highest-paid NHS bosses, on £207,000 a year.
A spokesman for the NHS in Sussex said its commissioning arrangements meant it could not offer its Speech and Language Therapy service, jointly commissioned with West Sussex County Council, to children from private schools as they are not funded by the local authority.
He said: ‘This is similar to NHS and local authority commissioning arrangements nationally.’
A county council spokesman said: ‘If a parent chooses to send a child to an independent school without an Education Health and Care Plan, responsibility for meeting speech and language needs lies with the school and family.
‘This is because the child is being educated outside of the maintained system.’
