“Health and social care support is missing too.”
Where health or social care provision is written into the plan and doesn't meet your child's needs, that dispute can often be dealt with alongside the education appeal rather than as a separate complaint elsewhere.
Reviewed by Tom, specialist SEND advocate. Last updated 19 August 2026.
Where health and social care provision is part of the dispute, the Tribunal can, in the right circumstances, hear those elements alongside the education appeal and make recommendations about them, rather than you having to pursue a separate complaint through the NHS or the council's social care department.
Those recommendations are not binding in the way the education parts of the decision are, but the health body or council is expected to respond to them formally, and in practice they carry real weight: a public body departing from a Tribunal recommendation has to be prepared to explain why.
The same standard applies as for education provision: what is written down has to be specific enough to hold someone to, not a vague reference to “input as needed”.
Whether your case falls within that combined route is one of the first things we check, on the free call, before anything is charged.
The appeal deadline
The clock starts when the finalised plan containing the disputed health or social care provision is issued with notice of your appeal rights. Before the appeal can be registered you need a mediation certificate, and for health elements the mediation adviser may involve the health body too; you do not have to mediate to get the certificate. The deadline is two months from the notice, or one month from your certificate, whichever is later. Because these cases can involve a body other than the council, it is worth getting advice quickly on which route applies.
How long it takes
These appeals usually involve more parties and more types of evidence than an education-only appeal, and where a health or social care body needs to be brought into the process directly that adds steps of its own. Tribunal listing times vary widely and the system is heavily backlogged, so we tell you the realistic current picture for your case on the free call rather than quoting a generic figure.
What we do at each stage
We check, before anything is charged, whether your case can run the health and social care elements alongside the education appeal, or whether a separate route applies.
Gathering evidence from education, health and social care professionals, so the case is built on all the provision actually in dispute, not just the parts a single school can speak to.
Where a health or social care body is engaged, not just the council's education department, we handle that correspondence directly.
Negotiating specific, quantified wording across the disputed sections together, not education and care as two separate fights.
If agreement isn't reached, we present the combined case at the hearing.
What it costs
Casework for a combined health and social care appeal is £4,800 including VAT, our highest casework tier because it genuinely involves more evidence and more parties, not because we charge more for the same work. Hearing-day advocacy is £1,800 per hearing day for our own casework clients. Independent expert reports across education, health and social care are commissioned separately from this fee, and we take no referral fee or commission from any expert we recommend.
All prices include VAT, ex-VAT figures shown as small print. For the full stage-by-stage breakdown, the hearing-day representation-only rate, and the stage-billing table, see every SEND tribunal fee we charge.
From our casework
Questions parents ask first
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