The child health strategy, which The Children's Plan had scheduled for the spring, has been put back until the autumn (see p10). The strategy has been postponed partly to get Lord Darzi's review of the NHS out of the way first, which is likely to place more focus on adult and acute health services.
It's widely acknowledged that health professionals as a group still have big strides to make in embracing Every Child Matters, in both spirit and practice. Joint working between health and children's services is at best patchy. While the delay to the child health strategy might at first appear a setback, this extra time could be a blessing in disguise if it results in a good, clear set of proposals.
For this to happen, two concerns need to be borne in mind. First, the strategy must strive to be practical and achievable. It should resist being too elaborate. This was the difficulty with the children's National Service Framework, the 10-year vision for transforming child health introduced in 2004, whose set of aspirations haven't been met.
Second, the manner in which children's health is delivered needs to be reconfigured. Primary care trusts sometimes lack the will to operate for the children's agenda since they are responsible for all healthcare needs in their area. While most PCTs have a designated children and young people's lead, many of these workers juggle other responsibilities as well, so children's health can get relegated in the ordering of priorities. Given this situation, the strategy needs to improve the delivery mechanism so that children's health needs in each area are guaranteed to be addressed. This might require the role of children's trusts to be strengthened.
Key to provision of health services for children and young people is a focus on prevention and early intervention, whether this is with regard to teenage pregnancy, healthy eating or emotional wellbeing. Indeed, the principles of prevention and early intervention are at the heart of the aspirations expressed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) through The Children's Plan. In putting together the child health strategy with the Department of Health, the DCSF must do whatever it takes to ensure these principles are allowed to drive practice.
