8th July 2025
iHV welcomes the Government’s newly published Best Start in Life strategy to bring together early years and family services – putting children’s first years at the heart of work to improve life chances.
Over the last few days, the Government has made a number of important policy announcements focused on its Opportunity Mission priority to ensure that every child has the best start in life – these are presented in the new “Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life” strategy which was published yesterday afternoon. The strategy is focused on three main policy areas:
- Better support for families (including strengthening health visiting)
- More accessible early education and childcare
- Improving quality in early years including reception.
The strategy is driven by the recognition that far too many children are not getting the best start in life which they deserve and need. There are many root causes to this – fundamentally, the strategy recognises that, “the attention of leaders, nationally and locally, has for too long been elsewhere”!
Alison Morton, iHV CEO, said:
“We join with others across the sector in welcoming this strategy with its clear focus on the earliest years and the hope that it will finally end the ‘baby blindspot’ that has been the focus of our campaigns for too many years. We are impatient for change and believe in a better future for our nation’s babies and young children who have so much potential to be healthy, develop and thrive, with the right conditions and support for success.”
The Government aims to build back crucial family services, providing high-quality support to parents, babies and children from pregnancy to age five. This includes:
- A new Best Start Family Service: To accelerate the process of rebuilding critical family services through renewed drive and fresh investment. It will take the best of the Sure Start, Family Hubs and Start for Life approaches to create Best Start Family Hubs, with a new evidenced-informed core offer for parents, a clear local mission around children’s early development in support of the Plan for Change milestone, and a digital parenting offer. This will be supported by a new national Best Start digital service, linked to ‘My Children’ on the NHS app.
- Funding Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority: With a commitment to deliver up to 1,000 Best Start Family Hubs across every local authority in England. These services will reach the children and families who will benefit most – those from low-income families and with additional vulnerabilities. Best Start Family Hubs will include professionals working across all local teams, including health and education, and will work with nurseries, childminders, schools, health services, libraries and local voluntary and community groups.
- Strengthening health services in early childhood: Linking with the ambitions of the 10 Year Health Plan, including the move to a neighbourhood health service, to improve support for families, so every child has the healthiest possible start in life:
- Better maternity and newborn care: To strengthen services, through the national, independent investigation of maternity and neonatal care, to reduce brain injury in childbirth, and setting new national standards to tackle maternal mortality, focused on the main causes of maternal death and harm.
- Strengthened health visiting services: With recognition that health visitors “play a vital role providing advice and support and are often the first to spot if a baby or young child needs extra help”. The strategy commits to, “strengthen health visiting services, by reducing variation in the reach and quality of development and health reviews to ensure all families have access to high-quality, personalised support. We will also test new ways of delivering these services to better meet families’ needs”.
- Making it easier to get vaccinated: Updating the vaccination schedule so children are protected from illnesses such as measles, mumps and rubella sooner, and making it “easier for children to get vaccinated – through their GP, and for some families during health visitor appointments”.
- Supporting healthy eating: To support the poorest families and tackle child poverty, giving direct support to families most at risk of food poverty, helping them buy nutritious food for their children, including restoring the value of the Healthy Start scheme.
- Tackling tooth decay: Through the supervised toothbrushing scheme, to reach up to 600,000 three- to five-year-olds in the most deprived areas in England.
- Making it easier to book appointments and provide a digital alternative to the ‘red book’: giving parents access to support, guidance and their child’s health records, via the NHS App.
- Accountability and innovation: The Plan for Change states that it will put early childhood outcomes back at the heart of national government priorities, bringing the spotlight for both policy and delivery to the life chances of our youngest children. It will agree with each local authority a clear target, working with health and voluntary and community sector organisations, to improve child development locally. It will work with local leaders and partners to experiment, fix problems, and ensure that it reaches the families who most need help, through the Test Learn and Grow programme.
To support the Government in driving forward this agenda, they will appoint a Best Start in Life Champion. The new Champion will bring early years expertise into the heart of government and will work through the Opportunity Mission to drive forward this change.
Alison added:
“The commitment to invest in building better health and early years’ education services, alongside a wider commitment to tackle child poverty is long overdue. We are also delighted to see the Government recognise the vital role that health visitors will play in delivering what will be a step change in this country’s focus on our youngest children.“We look forward to working with the Government, health visiting teams across the country, and partners across the early years’ sector, to turn all of these ambitious plans into reality. We now look to the government to end the uncertainty which is driving ongoing cuts to vital services, and publish full details of the funding and workforce plans that are key ingredients needed to deliver this strategy.”
