People can be referred to our service by members of the Community Learning Disability Team (CLDT).
These referrals can be made in two ways:
- For people newly referred to the CLDT, a Senior Health Care Co-ordinator will carry out a single shared assessment. At this stage it will be decided whether there is a need to refer to the Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) department for an assessment in the areas of communication or eating, drinking and swallowing.
- For people already open to the CLDT, any member of the team can “inter-team” refer after discussion with the SLT department to establish that our referral criteria has been met.
An individual Speech and Language Therapist will then carry out an assessment and decide whether or not to “open” the person’s case for further SLT input.
If the case is opened, a care aim will be identified and a programme of intervention will be put in place. After a period of careful monitoring and review, the case will become closed to the SLT department when there is no longer a clinical need for further input.
People can be re-referred to the department at a future point if their need for SLT input changes.