BSA Projects

The Primary Healthcare Workers Project - Report
A four year investigation into changing referral patterns to ensure the early identification and referral of dysfluent preschoolers in the UK

The summary report is available for download free. Download the summary report (pdf file, 131KB. To view pdf files, download Adobe^® Acrobat^® Reader™ here). It was published in 2000.

The full report, also published in 2000, is available for £10 (including postage and packing in the UK) - please contact us if you would like a copy of that

The aim of the four year Primary Healthcare Workers Project, which was part-funded by the Department of Health, was to educate primary healthcare workers (mainly GPs and health visitors) about the importance of early referral for pre-school dysfluent children. Many SLT departments have actively supported the project by implementing training programmes for their GPs and health visitors, as well as collecting referral information both before and after project implementation.

The result has been one of the largest epidemiological studies of dysfluency in pre-school children in recent years, producing some extremely interesting findings. There is clear evidence, for example, that by educating health visitors about the importance of early referral, annual referral rates have increased considerably without, however, increasing waiting lists at the same time. In order to sustain these positive developments, it is necessary for the SLT profession to continue this collaborative approach, especially with health visitors, but also with other healthcare professionals such as GPs.

We have discussed this need and these findings with the Department of Health and have devised, with their support, some recommendations for the provision of dysfluency services for the under-fives (pp. 20- 23). It is our hope that these recommendations will form the basis of future spending decisions within NHS Trusts and that SLTs might find them a useful tool when discussing these matters with their Trust managers.

If as a result of the project or summary report there has been a change in your dysfluency pre-school service, or the way the service is monitored, please let us know.

Primary Healthcare Workers Project page