The Orchid Practice Ltd. Terms & Conditions
Getting Started
Your initial assessment is the first stage of our process. We will offer your child an assessment at home or in school/nursery as appropriate. As part of the assessment process, you will be offered a complete speech and language or occupational therapy assessment depending on the identified areas of need, a thorough report and a recommendation for intervention.
How it Works
At The Orchid Practice, we pride ourselves on being transparent with our clients about the way we work and provide our intervention. We provide holistic therapy, support, advice, and work with you and your child and all those who are involved in your child’s care. As part of our service, we want to ensure that you and your child get the most out of the therapy we provide. To do this, we are committed to keeping accurate clinical records, planning and preparing bespoke therapy materials and resources, liaising with other professionals and reading all relevant reports or research base related to your child’s intervention. In addition to face to face time with your child, the therapist will plan and prepare for sessions, update targets, liaise with other professionals and keep in touch with families via e-mail, phone etc. as part of the therapy process.
What to Expect
Therapy sessions can take place at home, school, nursery and will last 30-45 minutes. Appropriate intervention will be offered based on the information gathered as part of the initial assessment process and in collaboration with parents, carers and education staff where appropriate. Admin related to your child’s intervention such as record keeping, target updates, resource planning & provision and liaison lasting up to 30 minutes is included in your fee per therapy session. You may periodically schedule a call with your therapist for up to 15 minutes free of charge.
Our therapists are passionate about our duty of care to children and young people. We are committed to working towards appropriate provision for communication needs for each child whilst supporting the family through this process.
Quality Services
We are proud to deliver quality therapeutic services to our customers. As part of our commitment to this, we believe in collaboration between our therapy team and will regularly arrange for joint therapy sessions, reviews or assessments so that we can continue to work together to ensure we are always enhancing our systems, processes and sharing evidence-based practice and clinical skills creatively and collaboratively. We will notify you when would like to offer this and will arrange it with you directly.
Payment
The Orchid Practice provides invoices for advanced payment. Invoices are payable in advance to secure your appointment(s). Payment via bank transfer is preferred, however, should you prefer to pay your bill online with a credit or debit card, we use Stripe for this service. To view the details of your invoice including dates and charges, you can download the invoice. (Please refer to our fee schedule for current prices or request one from our admin team.)
Our therapists travel to many locations in order to provide therapy services in the most appropriate environment for children. We do not charge travel expenses per visit as we aim to schedule in localities to maximise our time. We must try to do this as efficiently as possible so that we are able to meet the needs of our customers. However, if we are asked to accommodate a client visit that will have an impact on our work pattern, we may need to charge for travel in certain instances. We will make you aware of this ahead of time.
Illness & Cancellation Policy
We understand that children get ill and that life can be unpredictable. However, in order to run our services efficiently we have to operate a strict cancellation policy. We require more than 48 hours’ notice to cancel an appointment. Notifications to cancel received after this point will be treated as a Late Cancellation.
A Late Cancellation is when the appointment is cancelled with less than 48 hours before the day of the appointment. Late cancellations will not be rescheduled or refunded. No access visits will not be rescheduled or refunded. A no access visit is when the therapist arrives for the appointment and the child is not there.
Please note, we operate a 48 hour non-contact policy if your child has experienced any vomiting or diarrhoea. You must notify us as soon as possible in this situation, as we will be unable to provide the session. In the case of a planned home visit, please also notify us if any household members are symptomatic, we may request the session is rearranged.
Should the therapist need to cancel a session, a replacement may be offered depending on availability. If no replacement can be arranged, a refund will be provided. We are running a business, but we are people too, please talk to us if you have special a circumstance. We will handle your personal reasons discreetly and do what we can to assist you.
Parent/Carer Role
The Orchid Practice has a strong commitment to empowering parents/carers to play an active role in the therapy process to improve the child/young person’s speech, language, communication, motor, sensory and functional skills. This will include the parent/carer participating in sessions, attempting suggested activities provided for home practice and communicating openly about the process. The use of mobile phones & electronic devices during therapy sessions in strictly prohibited.
Services
At The Orchid Practice, we are proud to provide exactly what is needed for each child, no more, no less. Your therapist will discuss with you the amount of therapy that is appropriate to your child’s needs, but rest assured, you will not be obligated to continue therapy should your child’s difficulties resolve sooner than expected. Our fees are in accordance with the guidelines set by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) and the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT). Fees are reviewed annually. Please refer to our Fee Schedule for current assessment, therapy and other services cost information.
EHCP Assessments
We provide a full assessment at the child’s school lasting 2-3 hours including 1:1 assessment, classroom observation and liaison with school staff and parent interview. In addition to this, we may conduct telephone liaison with other professionals and will complete a thorough review of all professional reports provided. We will then provide a detailed report including a statement of need and intervention recommendations for the purposes of evidence to inform the EHCP process. Even if we are not the service delivering the EHCP provision (unless commissioned directly by the Local Authority), our reports include clinical evidence and recommendations based on the current needs of the child and outline a quantified speech and language provision designed to be included in the EHCP. Local Authorities may directly commission our practice to deliver services if this is required.
Tribunal Services
The practice offers expert witness services including legally binding assessment reports for EHCPs or tribunals and expert witness testimony. We have legally trained therapists who provide this service for current and new customers. The process begins with a preliminary meeting and is followed by information gathering and review of relevant documents. The therapist then completes a thorough assessment and observation. The next stage is preparation of a legally compatible report. The last stage which may have to be taken is court appearance to provide expert witness testimony. However, not all cases will require court appearance.