EHC Needs Assessments

What is an Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment?

The first step to getting an EHCP is to request that the local authority (LA) carry out an Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment (EHC needs assessment) of the child. This involves getting advice from a variety of professionals, the child’s parent/carer and the child or young person (where appropriate) in order to decide whether an EHCP is needed.


Who can request an EHC needs assessment?

An EHC needs assessment can be requested by anyone who thinks an assessment may be necessary for the child, including:

• The child or young person aged over 16

• Parent

• Teacher/SENCo and other education staff (including at early education settings and further education colleges)

• Doctors

• Health visitors

• Family friends
  

It is optimal when the child/young person or parent/carer and the school or education setting are aligned in making the request however this is not always possible.


How to request an EHC needs assessment

The request should be made in writing and should refer to Section 36 of the Children and Families Act 2014. The letter should include why you believe the child has or may have special educational needs and why they require more support than is available with the standard SEN support offer at school. The letter should be sent to the department at the LA (according to the home address of the child, even if they are in a different LA for school) that handles SEN support.

You can find your local authority here. You should be able to find out how a request can be made, and who to send it to, on your LA’s website.

Make sure you keep a copy of the request letter.


What happens after you make the request?

The LA must reply within six weeks of receiving the request. This is required by law (regulation 4(1) of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014).

Regardless of who made the request, the LA must always respond to the parent or young person.

This response will state whether the LA agrees to carry out an EHC needs assessment or whether the request has been refused.

According to the law, an EHC needs assessment should be carried out if the following two criteria are true:

• The child or young person has or may have special educational needs

• It may be necessary for additional support to be provided for the child or young person above what is available in school

These are the only criteria that the LA should base their decision on. If any other criteria are applied they are acting unlawfully.


What to do if the Education, Health and Care needs assessment is refused

If the Education Health and Care needs assessment is refused, you have the right to appeal the LA’s decision to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDIST).

Before starting an appeal, you must consider mediation. You can choose to proceed with mediation before appealing, or you can choose to go straight to appeal.

The letter the LA sent you will have information about how to go ahead with mediation.

If you choose to appeal without mediation you must complete the SEND35A form and get a mediation certificate. You have 2 months from the date on the LA’s decision letter or a month from the date of the mediation certificate (whichever is later) to send your appeal to the tribunal.