26th February 2016
Since March 2015 the Department of Health has asked all Health Visiting teams in England to use ASQ-3 as part of children’s health and development reviews at age 2-2½. Using ASQ-3 helps health visitors to make an overall assessment of a child’s development. It supports identification of developmental delay, leading to effective early intervention and support for children to be ready for learning and school.
Initial data about the use of ASQ-3 as part of two year reviews is very encouraging with NHS England figures showing that 79% of two year reviews in Q1 of 2015-16 included an ASQ-3 assessment.
The next step is for health visiting teams to report ASQ-3 scores to the HSCIC children’s data set on a monthly basis. This will enable ASQ-3 scores to be collected and reported at national as well as local level, providing the basis for the population measure of child development at age 2-2½, to be included in the Public Health Outcomes Framework from 2017. The population measure will help local areas to assess the impact of services for 0-2 year olds and inform local commissioning.
For further information, please contact HSIC
