Daily roundup 26 April: Staffing pressures, obesity, and Barnardo's appointment

Additional resourcing of children's health services is urgently needed, with hospitals facing a daily struggle to meet standards that provide children with high-quality, safe and consistent healthcare, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has warned. The organisation has called on government to expand the consultant workforce to help units increase consultant presence at peak times. To achieve this is wants 465 full-time equivalent paediatric trainees every year for the next five years.


Britain's childhood obesity crisis is now so grave that more than 50 per cent of children are overweight or obese upon leaving primary school in some areas, new figures show. The Telegraph reports that Camberwell Green in South London was revealed on Wednesday as the only neighbourhood where more children have a BMI of 25 or above than are healthy, according to Public Health England.


Wendy Becker has been announced as the new chair of Barnardo's board of trustees. Barnardo's said Becker has had a long career in international business and the charity sector, and has served as deputy chair of Cancer Research UK, as a trustee of The Prince's Trust and is a non-executive Director of NHS England. She will take over as chair from Tony Cohen, who is retiring in May.


Deaths like that of six-year-old Ellie Butler, who was murdered by her father, could keep happening unless failures in child protection are quickly corrected, a report obtained by the Guardian has warned. In a prevention of future deaths report submitted to the government, retired High Court judge Dame Linda Dobbs highlighted a series of failures by the agencies involved in Ellie's case before she was murdered.


The number of children being home-schooled has risen by about 40 per cent over three years, it has emerged. Figures obtained by the BBC show that across the UK 48,000 children were being home-educated in 2016/17, up from about 34,000 in 2014/15. Mental health issues and avoiding exclusion are two reasons parents gave for removing children from classrooms.