7th May 2026
The Southern Trust Speech and Language Therapy team have hosted Chief Executive of their Royal College, Steve Jamieson for a visit to Northern Ireland on Tuesday.
The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists is the UK’s main professional body for SLTs, responsible for setting standards and guidance, promoting research and education, and representing the profession nationally.
The visit gave Mr Jamieson the opportunity to meet frontline clinicians to learn how local services are helping to improve people’s lives.
Mr Jamieson met speech therapy colleagues from Sperrinview Special School to hear about the crucial role of speech and language therapy for children who require alternative and augmented forms of communication. They shared stories of how new technologies like voice output devices are giving children a voice and discussed the challenges of keeping up to date with these innovations and the associated workload.
SLT colleagues highlighted innovative practice and multi-disciplinary collaboration across a number of services including; an adult community waiting list initiative; the care home support team and; the community assessment rehabilitation service.
Speech and language therapist Luke Dowd, shared his career experience as a male in largely female profession, while heads of service from all five Health and Social Care Trusts joined Mr Jamieson to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the profession across the region.
Speaking after the visit Hilary McFaul, Professional Lead Speech and Language Therapist for the Southern Trust said: “We have a fantastic team of speech and language therapy professionals working in hospital and community settings across health and social care in Northern Ireland. Our colleagues are a key part of the multi-disciplinary team, offering assessment, diagnosis, treatment and support for children and adults of all ages who have difficulties with speech, language, communication, eating, drinking and swallowing.
“We were delighted to welcome the Royal College to demonstrate the compassion, experience and knowledge of our dedicated colleagues.
“This was a valuable opportunity to share some of our innovative services and practices, aiming to address increasing demand and complexity of our patients’ needs. Mr Jamieson encouraged our contribution to discussing national priorities around workforce challenges and service sustainability in the future development of Speech and Language Therapy across the UK.”
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