12th September 2024
Lord Darzi’s independent review on the state of health services in England has concluded that the service is in “serious trouble”, with long waiting lists, a deterioration in the nation’s underlying health, and problems for people accessing services. Focusing on children, the review highlights soaring demand for child health services, with too many babies, children and young people waiting years for treatment. Lord Darzi is clear that the solution is not to build more hospitals, but instead to follow the evidence and invest in better community care, stating that:
“When things go wrong the knee-jerk response from ministers has been to throw more money at hospitals where the pressure is most apparent as waiting areas fill up and ambulances queue outside.
“The result is that NHS has implemented the inverse of its stated strategy, with the system producing precisely the result that its current design drives. The problems are systemic. In the current paradigm, patients have a poorer experience, and everybody loses – patients, staff and taxpayers alike.”
The Institute of Health Visiting provided evidence and data for the review. And we are delighted to see Lord Darzi’s recognition of the challenges that services are facing, alongside acknowledgement of the crucial role that health visitors play in child health and development in the early years, stating:
“The Health and Social Care Act moved the commissioning of public health services to local authorities. As we have seen, the public health grant has fallen by more than 25 per cent in real terms. This has had a particular impact on Health Visiting, where numbers of health visitors have fallen … Given the extensive evidence base on the importance of the first 1,000 days of life; it is clear the NHS is missing an opportunity to intervene early.”
Commenting on the review, Alison Morton, iHV CEO said:
“The findings from the Darzi Review are shameful for a developed nation such as ours. Yet, they are not surprising given years of neglect of our healthcare services – they echo the issues that we have repeatedly raised over too many years. Childhood is short and the impacts of delays in care and treatment during these crucial developmental years are magnified and are unacceptable. Our babies, children, young people and families deserve so much better.
“Importantly, the report does not shy away from the stark realities – we can’t fix a problem until we are honest about it! We welcome the spotlight that this review has shone on the current state of services and are keen to work with the new government to push ahead with their plans to create the healthiest generation of children ever. This needs to include actions to fix the foundations of health by rebuilding health visiting services.”
This week, iHV also submitted evidence to the Spending review, setting out our call for investment in health visiting and case to rebuild services. It is precisely because the government faces a tight fiscal settlement that action needs to be taken to address the soaring costs of preventable problems which have their roots in early childhood. Failure to invest in prevention has been a costly mistake, with spending on late intervention spiralling out of control across health, education and social care.
The evidence is clear that investing in our nation’s children represents the smartest of all investments, with spending in the earliest years yielding the greatest return on investment across the life-course.
Read iHV submission to the 2024 Spending Review here
