Your education, health and care plan

An EHCP is a legal document that tells your school, college or setting what your needs are and how to help you, children and young people can get upto the age of 25.

You might find this video from the CDC helpful as it explains what is an Education, Health Care (EHC) plan is.

To get an EHCP you first need to ask for an EHC needs assessment.

The assessment is a way to look more closely at your special educational needs (SEND) and the support that you may need to help you to learn. 

In Leicestershire the Special Educational Needs Assessment and Commissioning Service (SENA) conduct all EHC needs assessments.

There are four steps to an EHC needs assessment:

• SENA has six weeks from receiving the request to decide if they think that an assessment is needed. They do this by looking at all the information that is sent in with the request at a decision-making meeting (panel meeting)

• If an assessment is not agreed, this is known as 'refusal to assess' and you could appeal against this decision to the SEND tribunal. A letter will be sent to you to inform you of their decision, which gives you the right to appeal. You can request a meeting with an officer from the Leicestershire County Council SENA team to discuss this further is you wish by contacting them directly. Their contact details will be on the letter

• If the assessment is agreed, then you might be asked to meet with some professionals such as an Educational Psychologist as part of this process. This will help them to assess your needs, so that they can make a decision on whether they think that an EHC plan (EHCP) is needed

• If the decision is not to issue an EHCP then again you can appeal this decision, 'refusal to issue a plan' to the SEND tribunal. You can also request a meeting with the SENA officer. At that meeting you can discuss why this decision was made and then from that meeting you can ask the school/college to look at how they can better support you better from any information that was discussed at the meeting or from any written reasoning provided from your refusal letter

If your given an EHCP, it is a legal document that your school, college or setting must then follow to support you with your learning and education.

Please be aware that having a needs assessment does not mean you will definitely get an EHCP.

This does not mean that assessment has not been useful, it may still lead to you getting the right support from your school or college as they should now understand your needs much better and will have been given some advice from SENA.

EHC needs assessment requests are made to the SENA team at Leicestershire County Council.

It can be made by you, your parents/ carer or by your school, college or setting with your permission.  You can apply directly yourself to the Leicestershire County Council SENA department by completing our template letter:

Or work in partnership with your school/college, who would complete a request form for you.

Completing this letter is a way for you to tell the SENA team about your SEND needs. They will then use this information, along with feedback from the school/college to make their final decision about whether to go ahead with the assessment or not. It is important they can fully understand the difficulties and the support that you think you need. We can help you with what information to provide:

As part of the request, information and evidence about your SEND and any support that has already been tried must be given to SENA. This is done using different forms/letters, depending on who is providing the information.

You could work with your parent/ carer or school/college to give your thoughts, feelings and views. You might also find our decision making toolkit helpful.

If your school, college or setting does not give you a copy of what they submit you can contact the SENA team to ask for it. 

Leicestershire County Council SENA team 
Call: 0116 305 6600 during office hours
Email: SenaService@leics.gov.uk
Contact the SENA service

Once the request for an EHC needs assessment has been made, there are a few different things that could happen. These are:

Assessment not agreed

SENA could say they do not think an assessment is needed. If they do, then they must tell you why they have made this decision. They have 6 weeks to tell you their decision.      

You can then choose to appeal (disagree with) this decision or you could wait and apply again in the future (you will have to wait at least 6 months from your original request date to apply again).       

If this happens you can get in touch and we can talk to you about this and offer some help and advice.

Assessment agreed but no EHCP written/issued 

If SENA agree to the assessment, they have a further 6 weeks to do the assessment and gather any additional information or advice that they need. They may ask you for some extra information or ask you to meet with a professional to talk about your needs.

After the assessment process has been completed SENA may decide not to issue an EHCP. You can appeal this decision, 'refusal to issue a plan'. You can also request a meeting with the SENA officer. At that meeting you can discuss why this decision was made. This decision may have been made because they think that your school or college is able to meet your needs and support you without one. A support plan should still be agreed and put in place by your school or college. Unlike an EHCP, it is not a legal document but should still help you to get the support that you need.

You can choose to appeal (disagree with) this decision. If this happens you can get in touch and we can talk to you about this and offer some help and advice.

Assessment agreed and EHCP written 

If SENA agree to the assessment, they have a further 6 weeks to do the assessment and gather any additional information or advice that they need. They may ask you for some extra information or ask you to meet with a professional to talk about your needs.

SENA will then write to tell you that they agree an EHCP is needed and that they will be writing an EHCP for you. They will then send out a draft version of the plan. You will be given the chance to tell SENA if you are happy with this draft plan, or if you want to talk about any changes that you want to be made you can request a meeting to discuss this with a SENA Officer. When you get the draft plan you have 15 days to return to your response. If this happens you can get in touch and we can talk to you about this and offer some help and advice if you are unsure about anything or have any further questions.

Your EHCP must be finished (finalised) within 20 weeks of the request for the assessment.