This seems a good time to get a report on the Owl Centre, the company that this blog began a partnership with in January, and their activities so far this year. Rhodri Lathey has kindly written the following report to update readers;-
“The Owl Centre continues to be very busy, receiving many referrals from across the country to help children with a wide range of issues. As children’s therapy services are not frontline NHS services, tight public budgets have increased waiting list times, and have therefore encouraged parents to look to independent providers.
However, it’s not all about the UK. Just over a month ago, The Owl Centre sent one of its Abergavenny-based Speech Therapists to Saudi to provide ongoing assistance to a young child. Although our therapist had initially been a little apprehensive on account of our media’s portrayal of Saudi, she reports that it’s far more Westernised than she’d imagined, and we’re all very jealous of the beautifully sunny beach photos that she’s sending back!
Closer to home, our Manchester team has just started a partnership with one of the NHS Trusts there, helping to clear a backlog of Autism assessments. It’s been challenging getting things set up with the NHS: our team has been raring to go for a few months (and, of course, the parents of the children on the waiting list are desperately keen to know whether their child has an ASD diagnosis), but we’ve come up against obstacles surrounding personal data sharing and storage. However, these have now been overcome, and our team is racing through the waiting list.
In part to overcome any future obstacles surrounding data sharing and storage, and in order to make our internal processes as efficient as possible, The Owl Centre is currently investing in an IT project, which is being undertaken by a Cheltenham software company. This is an expensive undertaking funded by a loan from Barclays, but it’s absolutely necessary in order to be able to continue to expand without compromising service levels. There come points in every business’ life when the existing infrastructure starts to creak, and so we’re taking steps to mitigate against that.
Finally, we’d like to welcome back our South Wales team leader, who has just returned to work following her maternity leave. This means that things are back on the up for us in the Cardiff area, and we hope that the same applies to City!”
Thank you Rhodri, can I just add that I’m proud to have this blog associated with such a worthy cause.
