Health reforms 'ignore children in care'
Lauren Higgs
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The government's health reforms fail to recognise the needs of children in care and other vulnerable young people, the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS) has warned.
In a joint response to the public health white paper alongside the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, ADCS called on government to make sure that children and young people’s health is prioritised.
"We are particularly concerned that there appears to be potentially inadequate representation of the needs of children and young people in the planning and commissioning arrangements in the proposed system," the associations warned.
"Responsibilities may become diluted and fragmented across the range of new structures and systems delivering health care."
Both organisations welcomed the government’s intention to give local authorities a leading role in protecting the health of their communities.
But they questioned how councils will be able to afford to meet the government’s expectations.
They also urged government to spell out how the different elements of the proposed new health system will work together.
"We are not clear of the intended relationship between Public Health England, the NHS Commissioning Boards, Monitor, HealthWatch, the Health and Wellbeing Boards and, ultimately, GP Consortia," they said. "We seek urgent clarification."
The associations added that joint working could be damaged unless Health and Wellbeing Boards are given statutory powers both to sign-off local commissioning plans from all partners, and to hold these commissioners to account.
"The potential lack of alignment between different structures and layers within the new local public health system may present significant challenges to integrated approaches," they said.