Disability charities welcome early signatories to charter
Derren Hayes
Friday, July 12, 2013
The first ten health and wellbeing boards (HWBs) have signed up to a dedicated Disabled Children's Charter just three months after its launch.
The charter, launched in April by Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM) and the Children's Trust Tadworth, gives boards seven targets to meet in the first year that are key to ensuring the health and care needs of disabled children and young people are a local priority.
The seven key charter commitments include engaging with local disabled children and their carers and embedding participation in their work; setting strategic outcomes for health and care providers; and promoting early intervention and smooth transition between children's and adult services. Boards will need to provide evidence on how they have met these commitments.
The 10 (out of 152) HWBs that have already signed up are: Durham, Halton, Kent, Lincolnshire, Manchester, Merton, North East Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Rochdale and Warrington. In addition, three local children's boards in Buckinghamshire, which report to the HWB, have adopted the charter.
Established in April as part of the government's controversial health reforms, HWBs are council-led forums made up of senior managers from local health and care sector bodies that work collectively to improve the health and wellbeing of their local population and reduce health inequalities.
Boards can influence the decision making of clinical commissioning groups – the GP-led bodies responsible for commissioning most local care and health services – and, crucially, are expected to encourage local people to participate in setting the local health strategy.
EDCM and the Children's Trust Tadworth developed the charter because of the need to ensure that HWBs give a high level of early priority to join planning and commissioning for disabled children and young people. They said the early signatories to the charter had adopted it at their first quarterly board meeting.
Srabani Sen, EDCM board member, said: "By signing the charter in the very first months after assuming their statutory responsibilities, these boards have signalled their clear dedication to improving the lives of disabled children, young people and their families in their local area. We hope that this will set an example for other HWBs around the country."