Speech and language therapy for adults

Our speech and language therapists are specialists in assessing, diagnosing and treating you if you have a communication or swallowing disorder.

Location: Brent, Ealing and Harrow
Division: Integrated clinical services

About adult speech and language therapy

Our adult speech and language therapy (SLT) service offers you:

  • care in hospital
  • intermediate care.

Our speech and language therapists are specialists in assessing, diagnosing and treating you if you have a communication or oro-pharyngeal swallowing disorder.

We aim to give you the best possible function, independence and quality of life by providing you with treatment programmes, advice and education. We work directly with you, and with your carers and families as you need us to. 

We also train other health professionals in screening for swallowing problems and in supporting you with communication and swallowing difficulties.

Conditions treated by adult speech and language therapy

We offer you specialist assessment and treatment if you have problems with speech, language, voice, or swallowing, which result from:

  • a cardio-vascular problem (such as a stroke)
  • a degenerative neurological disorder
  • a head injury
  • a brain tumour
  • head and neck cancer (including if you have had your voice box removed through a laryngectomy)
  • other cancers
  • dementia
  • respiratory conditions, including if you have a tracheostomy tube
  • complications after surgery
  • tracheostomy
  • swallowing problems due to frailty
  • stammering.

Adult speech and language therapy inpatient care

We provide you with care if you've been admitted to:

Adult speech and language therapy outpatient care

We provide services if you are visiting us as an outpatient at:

  • Central Middlesex Hospital
  • Ealing Hospital
  • Northwick Park Hospital
  • St. Mark's Hospital

We also offer a number of specialist services, and you can read more about these below.

Adult speech and language therapy specialist services

We provide a range of specialist services, including:

Videofluoroscopy: this means that we take a real-time x-ray of you swallowing so that we can assess your condition.

SLT voice clinic: we will see you in this clinic if you have a voice disorder. We use flexible nasendoscopy and rigid stroboscopy to look at your voice box (known as the larynx), so that we can provide you with more effective care, and help you understand your condition better.

Combined voice clinic: this clinic is led by one of our Ear, Nose, and Throat consultant surgeons and a specialist speech and language therapist. We use flexible nasendoscopy and rigid stroboscopy to diagnose your condition and provide you with effective care.

Cough reflex testing: for this test, we simulate you coughing. The strength of your cough tells us more about how you would react to food and drink entering your airway.

Surgical voice restoration: we see you for this service if you have had your voicebox removed (known as total laryngectomy). It's based at Northwick Park Hospital and includes:

  • inserting and maintaining surgical voice prostheses
  • helping to rehabilitate your sense of smell (known as olfactory rehabilitation)
  • problem-solving for any issues that you have relating to voice production, your voice prosthesis, trans-oesophageal puncture, or stoma.

Fibre-optic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES): this is where we evaluate your swallowing using an endoscope. We provide this service at Central Middlesex and Northwick Park Hospitals.

Adult speech and language therapy resources

If you have a problem with speech and language, or with swallowing, you may find the following organisations helpful:

Contact adult speech and language therapy

  • at Central Middlesex Hospital 020 8453 2262
  • at Ealing Hospital 020 8967 5000 ext 3835
  • at Northwick Park and St. Mark's Hospitals 020 8869 2410

Adult speech and language therapy referrals

Outpatient referrals

We accept outpatient referrals from GPs and consultants.

Referring for voice disorders

Please note that we only accept referrals for people with voice disorders who have had an ENT diagnosis. If you are referring someone who has a voice disorder, please document this clearly in the referral and include a copy of the original ENT report where possible.

Other GP referrals will be triaged and may be forwarded to the appropriate community service.

Ealing outpatients 

Our services in Ealing will accept self-referrals.