Child
Health Strategy to help parents

The government is revamping its vision for our children’s health service.
They plan to inject cash into the system, in the region of £372
million cross-government strategy to help everyone lead healthier lives.

The joint strategy “Healthy lives, brighter future: the strategy for
children and young people’s health” – was published by Children’s Secretary
Ed Balls and Health Secretary Alan Johnson –and describes what children
and their families can expect from child health services in their areas
from birth through to the age of 19.

Key aspects of this plan include:-

What parents should expect After their child’s birth:-

• A new antenatal and preparation for parenthood programme;

• An expansion of the family nurse partnership programme, providing intensive
support to vulnerable new parents in 70 areas of the country;

• More health visitors based in children’s centres;

When their child reaches school:

• A new Healthy Child Programme which will set out to parents the services
they can expect to improve their child’s health from free swimming to
exercise classes;

• Previously announced pilots of free school meals and plans to make
personal, social, health and economic education, including sex education,
compulsory;

As teenagers:

• A £27m campaign to improve young people’s knowledge of contraception
to increase teenagers’ “knowledge and trust” in the full range of contraception
to tackle urban myths around safer sex.

The strategy will be developed by the Department of Health together with
the Department for Children Schools and Families to enable more appropriate
and effective information sharing locally. The two government departments
will work with Together for Children, which is already working with the
DCSF to deliver Sure Start Children’s Centres, to develop a support programme
to be rolled out from spring 2009.

The plan includes strengthening the role of Sure Start Children’s Centres,
with each centre having access to a named health visitor, expanding the
Family Nurse Partnerships programme to support first time mothers from
30 to 70 sites by 2011 and testing out a new antenatal programme and preparation
for parenthood package for parents.

This strategy is a first step and will be followed by an annual report
that assesses progress, looks at the latest evidence and trends and make
recommendations for further action. A panel of experts will assist the
Government, with input from a new public health obesity observatory that
will develop our understanding of what changes behaviour.

The five key elements of the strategy are:

1. The healthy growth and development of children
2. Promoting healthier food choices
3. Building physical activity into our lives
4. Creating incentives for better health
5. Personalised advice and support

The child health strategy, also sets out how schoolchildren will be
encouraged to do more sports and eat a healthy school lunch. A major new
campaign will be launched later this year to promote contraception to
teenagers, responding to fears that they avoid it because of urban myths.

The plans were welcomed by family campaigners but criticised for failing
to provide new support for teenagers. Opposition MPs said the plans “lacked
ambition”.

A strategy for child health was promised in December 2007 when the children’s
secretary, Ed Balls, published a five-year children’s plan. The document
produced today, ‘Healthy lives, brighter futures’, collates many of the
individual programmes already in place to improve child health. It does
not include in-depth plans to tackle major issues such as obesity, smoking
or pregnancy among young people, which have their own separate strategies.

Date
9th March 2009

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