Experts at Hand begins phased local delivery from September 2026. The useful question for a school is not how many referrals it sends. It is what changes after specialist advice arrives, who is responsible for acting on it, and when the decision is reviewed.
That distinction matters because the offer is being built through local partnerships. A school may receive advice from a speech and language therapist, occupational therapist, educational psychologist or specialist teacher, but the value of that advice depends on what happens in the classroom afterwards.
What is confirmed about Experts at Hand?
The Department for Education (DfE) and NHS England have published year-one supporting guidance for the Experts at Hand offer. It applies to England and covers the 2026 to 2027 year.
The offer is being planned and delivered by local area partnerships. At a minimum, those partnerships include the local authority, integrated care board (ICB), mainstream settings, alternative provision and specialist settings, health providers, parent carer forums, and children and young people’s voices. Local authorities and ICBs are expected to plan and make decisions together, with named senior responsibility for delivery.
The guidance says around £1.8 billion will be invested over three years to develop the offer. Initial delivery starts in September 2026 and is expected to expand in the second year. The details a school can access will therefore depend on its local area plan, the needs identified locally, and the route the partnership creates for settings to ask for help.
The wider SEND reform consultation is a separate matter. Putting children and young people first contains proposals for future changes. It is not a new set of classroom duties for September 2026. Schools should prepare for the offer that exists now and track proposed reform separately.
What kind of support should schools expect?
Experts at Hand is intended to bring specialist input closer to mainstream settings. The guidance describes support such as:
- observation, light-touch assessment and advice for staff;
- time-limited group or whole-class work;
- occasional one-to-one support where appropriate;
- workshops and resources for parents and carers;
- coaching and guidance that builds staff knowledge and confidence;
- outreach from specialist schools and alternative provision.
Support should be additional to the provision already required through an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). It must not be used to replace statutory provision in an EHCP, existing specialist responsibilities or the school’s own duties under the current SEND framework.
The Education Hub’s plain-English explanation of Experts at Hand also makes the practical point that a diagnosis should not be the entry ticket. Support is meant to respond to what a child needs, not wait for a label before anyone acts.
For a SENCO, that means the referral or request should be tied to a real barrier. “Needs speech and language support” is a weak starting point. “Cannot follow two-step verbal instructions during practical work and misses the first task without visual support” gives the specialist and the school something to work on.
What should a school record after specialist advice?
The following is an operational record, not a DfE template or a new statutory requirement. It is simply the smallest useful chain for checking whether advice turned into support.
1. The barrier
Record what the pupil is finding difficult, where it happens and what the effect is. Use classroom language that helps another adult recognise the issue.
Include the pupil’s strengths and views where they help explain the barrier. Record family information separately when it adds important context. Do not reduce the entry to a diagnosis or a professional label.
2. What has already been tried
List the relevant support already used, how consistently it was delivered and what happened. This stops specialist time being spent recommending an approach the school has already tested without success.
It also gives the specialist a better starting point. “Visual timetable tried” tells very little. “Visual timetable used at the start of each afternoon for four weeks, but the pupil still missed the transition when the room changed” is more useful.
3. The advice received
Record who provided the advice, when it was received, what was recommended and any conditions attached to it. Keep the original report or communication available alongside the working record.
Separate the professional’s words from the school’s interpretation. That makes it easier to revisit the advice when the pupil’s circumstances or provision changes.
4. The implementation owner
Name the person responsible for making the next step happen. That may be a class teacher, form tutor, SENCO, pastoral lead or specialist colleague.
A group can support the action, but a named owner prevents the familiar result where everyone agrees with the recommendation and nobody starts it.
5. What changed
Come back to the original barrier. Did the pupil access more of the lesson, communicate more successfully, arrive more settled, take part in a group or manage a transition with less adult prompting?
The change may be for the pupil, family or staff. Record what was observed and avoid turning one good day into a claim that an intervention worked permanently.
6. The review decision
End with a decision and a date. The options will usually be to continue, adapt, stop or seek further advice. “Ongoing” is not a decision because it does not tell anyone what happens next.
If support changes, record why. If it stops, record the evidence behind that decision and what should be monitored afterwards.
Who owns each part of the record?
The school owns the day-to-day implementation. The SENCO may coordinate the process, but the class or subject teacher remains central to what happens in ordinary lessons. Staff who deliver support should be able to see the agreed outcome, the strategy and the review date.
The local area partnership owns the design and oversight of the Experts at Hand offer. It should make the route into support clear, explain what local services can provide and learn from patterns across settings.
Parents, carers and children and young people should be involved in decisions that affect support. Their views should be recorded as part of the decision, not added later as a formal paragraph that does not change anything.
That division of responsibility is important. Experts at Hand can provide specialist input. It does not remove the need for a school to act on the advice, communicate with the family and maintain a current record.
A practical first-term workflow
Schools do not need a new reporting system this term. They can test the existing process with a small sample of recent specialist inputs.
- Choose five recent pieces of specialist advice.
- Record the barrier and what the school had already tried.
- Add the recommendation, implementation owner and first review date.
- Check that the class or subject staff can find the agreed strategy.
- Revisit the record after an agreed period and state what changed.
- Escalate entries where advice was received but no one can confirm what happened next.
This exercise usually finds the gap faster than a new dashboard. If the school cannot complete the chain, it knows whether the problem is access to advice, unclear ownership, weak handover or a missing review habit.
For schools reviewing this across a wider cohort, the practical guide to building a September SEND baseline provides a useful way to make current provision and unresolved questions visible at the start of term. For the funding context, see what the 2027 to 2028 upfront SEND funding proposal could mean.
What should leaders measure?
Referral volume is easy to count and weak as a measure of impact. A small set of process measures is more useful:
- the proportion of specialist inputs with a named implementation owner;
- the time between advice arriving and the first implementation step;
- the proportion with a recorded review decision;
- the number of cases where the school can explain what changed;
- the proportion where the pupil or family view is recorded at the point of decision.
These measures should help leaders decide where to look. They should not become a target that encourages staff to close records quickly or describe pupils as numbers.
Where MeritDocs fits
The problem is often not the absence of advice. It is that the advice, current support and review decision live in different places.
Keeping the advice, current support and review decision in one connected SEND workflow gives a SENCO a clearer place to connect specialist input to the support that followed. Staff still decide what the advice means, what to use and when to change it. The platform supports the record; it does not replace professional judgement.
A school can use the MeritDocs 28-day free trial to test the workflow against its own non-identifying process questions. Do not send pupil records by ordinary email while exploring a product.
Experts at Hand checklist for schools
Before the first term gets busy, check that:
- the local route into Experts at Hand is known;
- staff know the difference between specialist advice and statutory EHCP provision;
- requests describe a barrier, not only a diagnosis or label;
- previous support is recorded before new advice is requested;
- every recommendation has an implementation owner;
- pupil and family views are captured at the point of decision;
- the review date and decision are visible;
- current support can be found without asking one person to search their inbox.
FAQs
Does Experts at Hand replace an EHCP?
No. The DfE guidance says the offer must be additional to, and not replace, provision set out in an EHCP or other existing statutory responsibilities.
Will every school receive the same support?
No. Local authorities and ICBs are developing the offer through local partnerships. The route, professional mix and first priorities will depend on local plans and need.
Does a pupil need a diagnosis?
No. The public explanation of the offer says support should be based on what help a child needs, rather than waiting for a particular diagnosis.
What should a SENCO record first?
Start with the barrier, what has already been tried, the advice received, the implementation owner, what changed and the review decision. That chain is more useful than a referral count on its own.
Status note: Published 8 September 2026. This article distinguishes current requirements from proposals, consultations, announced funding or inspection changes. A proposal or announcement does not create a new statutory duty until the relevant legislation, regulations or official guidance is in force. Check the linked official sources below for the confirmed implementation date and current position.