The Publication of the Hewitt review sets out a vision for a health system defined by greater freedom for local systems to meet the needs of their communities, focusing on preventing, rather than just responding to ill health.
There’s much to welcome in this, but it is vital that the health needs of babies, children and young people are central to how Government and Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) deliver this vision. The recommendation for a new definition of prevention to guide ICS’s own investment in prevention and the need to reduce health inequalities must start with ensuring every child has the best start in life and a healthy childhood.
NCB and members of the Children and Young People’s Health Policy Influencing Group (HPIG) would welcome the opportunity to work with Government and officials to help inform their understanding of prevention. The Hewitt Review has pointed us in the direction of a different system that could work for children but it is not a roadmap and the architecture of this new system, especially at a local level, is still to be determined.
NCB welcome the placing of local communities and partnerships at the centre of locally developed approaches to ensuring healthy populations. The voices of babies, children, young people and their families and experts by experience must be core to this process at every stage. We would welcome a commitment to see lived experience and the voice of young people included within the creation of a Health, Wellbeing and Care Assembly. This would ensure that co-production is embedded throughout the system and not just highlighted as good practice in the writing of ICP strategies.
Both NCB and members of HPIG know the value of working in partnership with children and families to address complex challenges and will work with ICSs to ensure local systems meet the needs of their children and young people. Alongside this there is an opportunity for government to ensure that shared outcomes and priorities put children and young people at the centre, especially those with complex needs health needs, those who require mental health support, and disabled children, young people and their families.
This must be supported through the ongoing role for national priorities but, as HPIG highlighted in our submission to the Review, any narrowing of the focus of national targets cannot come at the expense of delivering national priorities for children and young people. It is important that the system of national targets and accountabilities recognises the complexity of the children’s system and the role of key partners, particularly the Department for Education and the education and social care systems, in delivering improvements.
NCB welcome the focus on data sharing and use of data, however, for children we know that there is a need for a consistent child identifier to enable greater data sharing within children’s health, education and social care. This is something the Government has already committed to and NCB hopes this Review reinforces the significant need for such an intervention.
NCB were grateful for the opportunity to engage with the Hewitt Review and submit our views on how the health system can best meet the needs of babies, children and young people. The Review offers an opportunity to further cement the importance of children’s health but to do this we need Government to lead on ensuring that children’s health is core to the way ICS’s and partners meet the needs of their local populations. We look forward to working with the sector to sustain a focus on children’s health.
If you want to be more involved in children’s health and work with ICSs around children, NCB encourage you to become a member of HPIG please contact Ben Fraser.