Children ‘deserve better’ from healthcare, says report

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has warned that child health is suffering at the hands of a disjointed government approach to improving services.

State of Child Health: One year on suggests that the young were the most ‘disadvantaged’ by inefficient health services, cuts to public health, and a ‘rising tide of poverty’. The scorecard for England shows that public health spending is over five per cent lower in 2017/18 compared with 2013/14, and that there has been no improvement in providing an overarching child health strategy or banning junk food advertising.

Furthermore, the has been little improvement in measuring UK breastfeeding prevalence and that there is no increased investment in child health research.

In contrast, the report notes improvements by the Scottish and Welsh governments, specifically recognising the passing of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act with defined poverty reduction targets and a new Mental Health Strategy in Scotland, including a commitment to improve transition to adult services. Additionally, in Wales a new state of the art facility in Cardiff has opened to expand capacity for child health research, while the Public Health (Wales) Act has been enacted which includes extending bans on smoking in public places to school grounds, playgrounds and NHS grounds.

Neena Modi, president of the RCPCH, said: “The science exists for all to see; invest in the health of children and make a huge difference to their health in later life and hence to their economic productivity. For example, four-fifths of obese children will remain obese as adults and this will result in them losing between 10-20 years of healthy life. That’s a very frightening statistic and something that government must get to grips with. It’s no wonder the NHS is burgeoning under the weight of ill health. This is time for a long vision for the sake of the nation’s wellbeing and prosperity yet the focus remains short-term and ineffective.

“We need parity of esteem between acute and preventive healthcare. It is no good only throwing money at treating established problems; there must be far better investment in prevention, which will reap immeasurable long term benefits. This means much bolder public health policies and a reversal of the current destructive cuts to preventive services.”