Chief medical officer urges strong measures to boost child health

In a damning report, Professor Dame Sally Davies called for Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission to “routinely ask for evidence on how well children’s and health services work together”.

Davies also wants free vitamins to be available to children and suggests that the National Institute for Care and Health Excellence looks into the cost-effectiveness of offering vitamin supplements to every child.

She highlights a successful universal handout of vitamin D tablets to children in Birmingham. One in five children in the city take the tablets. Cases of rickets, which is caused by vitamin D deficiency, have halved as a result.

She also wants to see annual surveys of the performance of child mental health, including a comparison with other European countries, and for all children with long-term conditions to have a named GP to ensure continuity of care.

The health risks to the UK’s poorest children – in particular through obesity and mental health problems – is another major focus of her report.

She highlights latest figures, which show that 27 per cent of UK children are either in poverty or at risk of being in poverty, compared with 16 per cent in the Netherlands.

In the UK, 12.5 per cent of toddlers are obese – she estimates the long-term cost of childhood obesity could be as high as £700m a year.

In addition, the Davies says five more children die each day in the UK of avoidable causes than in Sweden.

While welcoming government initiatives to improve child health among poor families such as family nurse practitioners, which support teenage mothers, she says such interventions need to become more widespread.

Davies also says a joint campaign by central and local government and the NHS is necessary to increase physical activity among children. She also urges a stronger focus on health in the government’s Troubled Families initiative, which targets families with multiple and complex problems, and in the work of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission.

She said: “This report questions whether we have the balance right in our society and should act as a wake-up call. The evidence is crystal clear and the opportunity is huge – investing in children is a certain way of improving the economic health of our nation, as well as our children’s wellbeing.”

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health president Dr Hilary Cass said: “Today’s report provides a timely reminder of the challenges we face and the importance of child health in the overall health of the nation.”
 
National Children’s Bureau chief executive Dr Hilary Emery added: “The UK must have greater expectations for children’s health if we are to be the best place in the world for children to grow up.”