Launched in January, the Children and Young People’s Forum has the potential to ensure that children’s health needs are central to government thinking during the final, critical phase of development work on the health and social care reforms.
For that reason the Council for Disabled Children and NCB brought together representatives from the children’s charity sector to think collectively about what evidence the forum needs.
One of the strongest messages to come out of the meeting related to existing outcome measures within the NHS and public health outcomes frameworks. Currently there are a large number that do not apply to those under 18. Participants felt that many could be redesigned to include children and then would act as a powerful tool for improving children’s health services.
In terms of system reform the key concern was that local health commissioning structures should engage with children’s social and education services to ensure integrated commissioning. Furthermore, children and young people should be represented within the commissioning system and their needs explicitly recognised, especially children with highly specialised and low-incidence conditions that may require a range of services.
The forum is working to a very tight timescale at a time when everyone in the public sector is under a lot of pressure. Our organisations and the knowledge that we hold on what makes services work for children is going to be critical. We need to ensure that the forum uses and understands all those examples of good practice and can pull out the key factors which will finally bring about a step change in health services for children.
Amanda Allard is principal officer at the Council for Disabled Children.
