iHV publishes submission to parliamentary inquiry into the First 1000 Days of Life

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) has published its written evidence submitted to the parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee inquiry into the First 1000 Days of Life.

The bulk of public spending during a child’s life comes in their teenage years, but there is a significant case for investing public money much earlier – i.e. during a child’s first 1000 days of life. There is strong evidence showing spending then has many later benefits to individuals and society – the problem is the gap between that evidence and what is currently provided. This inquiry is to review that gap.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, Executive Director, Institute of Health Visiting said:

“We welcome this inquiry into the First 1000 day of a child’s life. Evidence supports a specific priority for focusing spending on early intervention, prevention and inequalities as they affect children in the first 1000 days of life. We know that this would have a significant impact on their future health and development across the life-course. Investing more resources in the first 1000 days, would lead to less investment being needed for secondary and tertiary care in later life, by preventing problems (and increased costs of later healthcare) from occurring in the first place.

“Health visitors have highly developed skills in assessment and the formation of trusting relationships with families, each being critical to effective engagement with families in the first 1000 days. Adequate resourcing of the service could be delivering enhanced and earlier support to prevent problems or reduce their impact and in so doing reduce later expenditure for the NHS.”

The parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee inquiry into the First 1000 Days of Life is not re-examining the evidence base, or the economic case. Instead it plans to focus on the following three key areas: national strategy, current spending and barriers to investment and local provision.

Dr Adams continued:

“On national strategy, we propose that the NHS should act with others to strengthen the governance of the Healthy Child Programme (HCP) across all partners. This should be through joint integrated NHS and local authority commissioning within a national quality framework for systems-based practice for child and family public health. That should realise the benefits of closer working both with NHS child health services and primary care, alongside local authority services such as children’s centres. In such a context, health visitors are well equipped to more realistically fulfil their long-recognised mandate to both deliver in practice and to lead the HCP at system level.

“On current spending and barriers to investment, we highlight the impact of recent reductions in public health funding and evidence of the impact of reductions in the resourcing of health visiting. We also recommend that health visitor caseload size should not exceed 250 children per full time health visitor or a maximum ratio of 1:100 in more deprived areas.

“Our written evidence submission lays out what the Institute believes a high-quality evidence-based approach to service provision would look like for the First 1000 Days of life if more spending happened during this period. Health visitors, with their highly developed skills, are well placed and critical to supporting this agenda.”

Download iHV Written evidence to the parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee inquiry into the First 1000 Days of Life

Submissions wanted on the first 1000 days of life

The Health and Social Care Committee has launched an inquiry into the early years of a child’s life. The early years of a child’s life, from conception to age 2, is vital to their ongoing physical, mental and emotional health and development.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, Executive Director iHV, commented:

“This inquiry into the first 1000 days of life is an opportunity for health visitors to feed in their views of what needs to change to support infants during the period from pregnancy to age two. Local evidence of good practice would be particularly helpful during these difficult times for the profession.”

Call for written submissions

The Committee would like to receive written submissions on the following questions:

1. National strategy

The top priorities for a national strategy, based on existing evidence and lessons from other countries, particularly the devolved administrations.
The current roles, responsibilities and functions across Whitehall, executive agencies and other non-departmental public bodies for the First 1000 Days, including suggestions for how these arrangements could be made more effective.

2. Current spending and barriers to investment

Recent public spending on services covering the First 1000 Days.
Difficulties in making the case for investment nationally and locally.

3. Local provision

The scope, scale and current performance of provision for First 1000 Days of life, including universal and targeted approaches.
Barriers to delivery (e.g. workforce shortages, financial constraints on councils)
What a high-quality evidence-based approach to service provision would look like for the First 1000 Days of life.

Deadline for written submissions is Friday 7 September 2018.

Send your written submissions through the first 1000 days of life inquiry page

Targeted call for evidence (local councils and CCGs)

In addition to the open call for evidence above, the Health and Social Care Committee would also like to invite local councils and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to supply evidence on what provision looks like for the first 1000 days across the country, along with the factors that have influenced the current landscape of provision.

For more information on the inquiry and how to submit evidence, please go to the inquiry webpage

MPs launch inquiry into impact of social media on young people’s mental health and wellbeing

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Social Media and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing has today (29 June 2018) launched an inquiry to establish what actions must be taken both to tackle the negative impacts of social media use, and to maximise the positives for young people.

The inquiry aims to build on the work of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH)’s 2017 report, #StatusOfMind, which found that although social media use has many potential positives for mental wellbeing, such as maintaining friendships and providing a source of emotional support, for young people the impact is primarily negative, fuelling feelings of anxiety, depression, and ‘fear of missing out’.

Polling conducted by RSPH in April 2018 on behalf of the new APPG found that more than half of the UK public (52%) say not enough is being done by social media companies to address the impact of social media on mental health and wellbeing, with two in five (41%) also saying the Government is not doing enough. Four in five (80%) say tighter regulation of social media companies is needed, with almost half (45%) saying this should be done through a self-regulated Code of Conduct, and more than one third (36%) saying it should be legally enforced by Government.

The APPG’s inquiry aims to determine what should be contained in any such Code of Conduct, and how it should be enforced. It will also seek out and recommend other progressive and practical solutions that can help maximise the positives and mitigate the negatives of social media for young people.

The inquiry will be open to receive written and recorded evidence until 13 August 2018, with a number of oral evidence sessions to be held in Parliament in the autumn. The APPG hopes to engage with expert stakeholders including academics, charities, government officials, social media industry representatives, parents and young people themselves, in order to answer four broad questions:

What is the latest evidence of the impact of social media on mental health and wellbeing?
What constitutes a ‘healthy’ and beneficial relationship with social media for young people?
What should be done by government and by the social media industry to address these issues?
What solutions can be provided in terms of technological innovation and education?

Organisations and individuals interested in submitting evidence to the inquiry should download the Call for Evidence from the APPG website at www.rsph.org.uk/socialmediaappg.

Download Call for Evidence