Mikey Akers is an Afasic Ambassador and also the founder of Mikey’s Wish charity.
Mikey started the petition to get this debate into Westminster. Here is his report from the debate.
On Monday 27th January I travelled down to London, where I was joined by representatives from Mikey’s Wish Foundation, RCSLT, parents, campaigners and the ‘Unbelievable’ Chris Kamara, to listen to the Speech and Language debate which came from the petition I tabled calling for the government to invest in speech and language services.
The debate had the backing of a number of MP’s from across England and from different parties. The majority of them had personal stories, with someone from their family needing to access the vital speech and language services and if they didn’t have personal stories they had heard of the struggles their constituents had accessing speech and language services. Every MP’s speech was passionate and they seemed to genuinely want to help make a differing this area.
It was amazing to attend the #InvestInSLT debate alongside others who supported the petition. MPs from all areas of England spoke and they all agreed the waiting lists for speech and language therapy are too long, children and adults are waiting to long to gain this vital service and it’s down to the lack of funding in this area. Speech and language therapists are leaving the profession because they can not do what they trained to do, support people with speech language and communication needs.
We made some amazing connections and I had a promise of a meeting with the Minister for Health and Social Care along with NHS leaders. It was exciting to see the very people who can help make change talking about the state of the speech and language services here in the UK.
I really hope this was the first tentative steps to change.
Mikey.