Solving the SEND crisis: one trust's blueprint for reducing wait times and improving outcomes

The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system in England is under unprecedented pressure and is likely to remain so. This article considers whether innovative approaches – such as the Mercian Trust’s pioneering model – can help to transform outcomes for pupils. 

The problem

According to the recent House of Commons Education Committee Report ‘Solving the SEND Crisis’, over 1.2 million children and young people receive Special Educational Needs (SEN) support and nearly half a million have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. This is placing significant strain on services and professionals across both the education and health sectors.  

Currently the system is unable to meet demand, and that means that children and young people with SEND (and their families), are not consistently receiving the high-quality support they need and are entitled to. Gaps in provision and capacity are causing delays, limiting progress, and preventing improved outcomes. 

To address these challenges, the Committee made a series of recommendations, which we explore in our article: ‘Solving the SEND crisis: what can schools and colleges learn from the latest House of Commons Education Committee report?’ 

Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, acknowledged receipt of the report in a letter to the Committee. However, she confirmed that the government’s White Paper, originally expected this autumn and intended to set out plans for SEND reform, will now be delayed until the new year. 

An alternative approach…

Against this backdrop, the Mercian Trust’s Conrad Bourne – Director for SEND and West Midlands Deputy Regional Schools Lead, Whole School SEND – launched a project in 2019 to create a multi-disciplinary team to reduce the referral-to-assessment timeline for pupils with SEND. The initiative sought to deliver a service, at no extra cost, that would: 

• Identify and remove barriers for pupils
• Build and sustain capacity within the system; and
• Shift the focus away from fixed end points towards supporting young people’s needs into early adulthood. 

The Trust recognised the need to intervene at an early stage and focused on developing its internal expertise by leveraging its role as a professional training environment. It forged a strategic partnership with a local university which lead to integrating nearly 80 clinical students directly into its school settings. These included occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, music, drama and art therapy as as mental health nursing students.  

This enhanced the support the children obtained and gave the Trust the opportunity to critically evaluate whether its environments, systems and processes were inadvertently hindering learner progress. The insights the Trust gained from clinical trainees led to meaningful adjustments that improved pupil confidence, resilience and overall wellbeing. 

To address the bottleneck in external clinical assessments, the Trust also set up its own mulit-disciplinary clinical team of qualified therapists in key areas. This team introduced a triage-based referral system, pre-referral consultations and streamlined communication channels. 

What has the Mercian Trust achieved?

Six years on, the Trust’s multi-disciplinary clinical team has delivered impressive results: 

• Triaged over 600 referrals and completed more than 400 clinical assessments
• Actioned over 200 referrals that would previously have received a CAMHS referral
• Introduced a ‘track and sustain’ model providing year-round support for the most at-risk families
• Improved inter-agency collaboration, reducing response and action times to meet early need and direct support for pupils and families in crisis
• Secured over 80 clinical student placements through partnerships with seven universities, creating additional training opportunities, student support and capacity
• Led innovations such as complete screening of all year 7 students for Speech Language Communication Needs (SLCN) barriers.

The Trust has reduced the average referral to assessment time from 14 months to under 14 days. 

You can get in touch with Conrad via email: conrad.boruen@merciantrust.org.uk or via his LinkedIn profile.

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