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1
Prevention and
Early Intervention
1.1
Children who enjoy
better health and wellbeing now will grow up to be resilient
adults. In addition to the benefit to the population this
also means reduced pressure on the health service and all public
services that children and families use. With more than a
quarter of children in Wales at reception age overweight or obese
and more than half of all adults with mental health problems
diagnosed in childhood, early intervention and prevention for
children’s mental and physical health is crucial. We
would like to see the Children, Young People and Education
Committee scrutinise Welsh Government plans for prevention and
early intervention and ensure this is a priority. In
particular, we would like the Committee to:
·
Hold
the Welsh Government to account on action to reduce consumption of
food and drinks high in fat, sugar and salt.
·
Scrutinise Welsh
Government plans relating to the introduction of evidence-based
personal and social education (PSE) programmes across primary and
secondary schools covering social inclusion, bullying, drug and
alcohol use, mental health and healthy relationships that foster
children’s social and emotional health and
wellbeing.
·
Call
for the timely publication and implementation of the 2016-19
Together for Mental Health Delivery Plan and ensure that the
multi-agency Together 4 Children and Young People project is
effective in delivering Together for Mental Health objectives as
they relate to children and young people.
2
Tackling Child
Health Inequalities
2.1
Poverty,
inequality and where a family lives have a direct relationship with
child health. Child death rates in the most deprived parts of
Wales are 70% higher than in the least deprived parts. Every
opportunity must be taken to reduce inequalities to improve the
health of children and young people in Wales. We ask that the
Committee makes holding the Welsh Government to account on reducing
child health inequality a priority. Specific areas that
require scrutiny include:
·
Ensuring that the
Welsh Government delivers parity of esteem for child mental and
physical health.
·
Establishing what
plans there are to improve support for children with medical needs
in education settings and how all schools can be made to comply
with these plans, challenging the Welsh Government on how this can
be ensured in the absence of a mandatory duty on schools to do
so.
·
What
plans there are to address the known risk groups and factors to
reduce child deaths across all ages, ideally as part of a
cross-departmental child health strategy.
3
Involving children
and young people in decision making in Wales
3.1
At
present the voice of children and young people and their families
is often lost within the adult-centric nature of health and social
care provision. Children’s services are not a bolt-on
to adult services and should be co-produced with children and young
people. Their voices must be heard and listened to with their
views given due weight. We would urge the Committee to
establish how the Welsh Government will achieve this. Again,
we would suggest specific actions:
·
We
would urge that the Committee itself engages directly with the
views of children and young people across Wales to ensure they are
included in decisions about their health and wellbeing.
·
We
would also suggest that the Committee scrutinises the collection
and use of data we have about child health and wellbeing.
Currently, the National Survey for Wales does not include
children under 16 years old and does not take survey responses
directly from children.
4
A
joint commitment on health for children and young
people
4.1
Integrating all
care around the needs of children, young people and their families
is crucial to improving health outcomes. Working across
professional and service boundaries should be the norm for all
those who work with children and young people. We would urge
the committee to scrutinise work across government departments and
hold government to account collectively if action on child health
is not joined up.
4.2
We
also need to address the paediatric workforce across Wales, which
is facing considerable pressures in recruiting and retaining
paediatricians and addressing shortfalls. The Committee has a
role in scrutinising the Welsh Government’s successes or
otherwise in recruiting and retaining paediatricians.
4.3
We
would suggest specific actions by the Committee to:
·
Make
the case for a cross-departmental child health
strategy.
·
Scrutinise the
work and success of Public Health Wales in raising awareness of
unexpected sudden infant deaths and of known risk factors such as
parental smoking; and to increase awareness of safe sleeping
habits.
·
Scrutinise the
effectiveness of measures to address shortfalls in the paediatric
and child health workforce.
·
Scrutinise the
implementation of the RCPCH’s Facing the Future: Standards
for Acute General Paediatric Services and Facing the Future:
Together for Child Health Standards.
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