Tags: report

LGA – Public health transformation five years on: transformation in action

Today the Local Government Association (LGA) launched Public health transformation five years on: transformation in action – the fifth in their series of annual reports.

Public health has been part of local government for five years now. We are well beyond the stage at which public health teams have ‘bedded in’ to local authorities and at which local authorities have learned what public health is all about.

Born of the synergy between the two, we should now expect to see significant changes in the way local government carries on its business; and significant changes in the understanding of public health teams of the potential breadth and depth of their reach in tackling the social determinants of health.

Go to LGA Public health transformation five years on

New MBRRACE report published on maternal deaths and morbidity

Today MBRRACE-UK has published its latest Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths and Morbidity findings.

The latest from the national collaborative programme studying maternal and infant deaths, MBRRACE-UK, reviewed the care of 124 women who died and 46 women who had severe illness during or after pregnancy in the UK and Ireland between 2013 and 2015. The report, ‘Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care’, examined the care of women with severe epilepsy and women who had severe mental illness, as well as the care of women who died.

Download the full report, lay summary and infographic for Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care report – Lessons learned to inform maternity care from the UK and Ireland Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths and Morbidity 2013-15.

Download full report

Download lay summary

Download infographic

iHV responds to ‘Every mother must get the help they need’ report

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) responds to the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) report ‘Every mother must get the help they need’ report published this week.  The report was inspired by the Change.org petition of Lucie Holland whose sister, Emma, died in tragic circumstances as a result of perinatal mental illness.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, executive director of the Institute of Health Visiting, said:

“The remarkable efforts of Lucie Holland and her family following Emma’s tragic death serve as a moral imperative for national commissioning bodies, and also for every commissioner at every local level, so that such a tragedy should never happen again. We need to broaden perceptions of mental health, so that all women and their families, and all health and social care professionals consider mental health equal to physical health.”

Lucie set up the petition in 2015 calling for better awareness and care for those affected by perinatal mental illness. Her petition received thousands of signatures and many people left heartfelt comments about their own experiences. The RCM collated and analysed all the comments to form the report ‘Every mother must get the help they need’.

Dr Adams continued:

“It is vital that all practitioners working alongside women and their families in the perinatal period are competent, confident and committed to ensuring that the right care, at the right time, is available in the right place for all women and their families. Specialist midwives and specialist health visitors should be in post at every local level as part of a comprehensive specialist perinatal mental health service offer. The Institute is committed to working in partnership with all agencies to achieve the highest standard of care all mothers and their families deserve.”

New reports from PHE: social inequity drives health inequalities

Two new reports from Public Health England (PHE), launched today, once again flag up the importance of social inequity to driving health inequalities – the Health profile for England report and the Public Health Outcomes: health equity report.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, executive director iHV, says

“It is very helpful to again see this focus on the wider determinants of health.  There are lots of messages here for health visitors to consider and discuss with their colleagues, employers and local authority commissioners with respect to the communities where they work.”

The “Health Profile for England” report summarises the current picture of and trends in health outcomes in England with a focus on mortality, morbidity, risk factors and the social determinants of health. It brings together key PHE data and knowledge on the health of the population and fills gaps in existing outputs. It also looks at how England compares with other European countries and describes inequalities in outcomes within England. It summarises inequalities in outcomes and the impact of the social determinants of health.

Go to PHE: Health Profile for England report

The “Public Health Outcomes Framework: Health Equity Report” examines inequalities in outcomes and the social determinants of health between different population groups and has a special focus on ethnicity. It will increase understanding of inequalities in health outcomes between different populations and address some gaps in existing data and analysis.

Go to PHE: Public Health Outcomes Framework: Health Equity report

Watch PHE launch of reports:

iHV shares RCPCH’s concerns on workforce shortage

The iHV shares the concerns of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) that children’s health services are being put at risk by a serious shortage of paediatricians.

Gaps in paediatric rotas, uncertainty over the status of non-UK nationals working in the NHS, poorly co-ordinated planning, and a demoralised workforce, are putting increasing pressure on child health services and placing quality of care in jeopardy, according to a new report from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH).

It shows that demand for children’s healthcare is increasing, with the number of hospital admissions for children in England rising by 25% between 2013/14 and 2015/16, from 1.2million to 1.5million and attendances by children at Accident and Emergency Departments growing by 7%, from 4.5 million to 4.8 million over the same period.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, executive director, iHV, said:

“The iHV shares the concerns of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) that children’s health services are being put at risk by a serious shortage of paediatricians.  This situation, coupled with the reducing numbers of health visitors, will have a drastic impact on the health and wellbeing of babies, children and families.  A health visitor’s role is to help parents to manage minor illnesses and reduce accidents within the home and so reduce the numbers of babies and children needing to go to hospital.  But the reducing health visitor numbers will put a greater demand on reducing paediatric services, which will have economic consequences for the future, particularly on the already cash-strapped NHS.”

The RCPCH Report “The State of Child Health: The Paediatric Workforce” is based on data from the RCPCH Workforce Census 2015, with additional data from the Office of National Statistics, and RCPCH trainee recruitment processes.

Read full RCPCH press release

Health Committee: Government is missing important opportunities to tackle childhood obesity

The Government needs to take more robust action to tackle the impact of deep discounting and price promotions on the sales of unhealthy food and drink, says the Health Committee in its follow up report into childhood obesity.

The Government’s plan to tackle childhood obesity was published in August 2016. Although the Health Committee welcomes the measures the Government has announced on the sugary drinks levy, they are extremely disappointed that several key areas for action that could have made the strategy more effective have not been included.

The soft drinks industry levy

The Committee also calls on the Government to ensure that manufacturers pass on the cost of the levy to ensure that there is a price differential at the point of sale between high- and low- or no-sugar drinks.

The report welcomes the Government’s positive response to the Committee’s recommendation that the proceeds of the soft drinks industry levy should be directed towards measures to improve children’s health including through increasing access to school sports and to breakfast clubs.

Read full news story on Parliament website

New report – The performance of the NHS in England in transforming children’s mental health services

The Education Policy Institute has published a new report, The performance of the NHS in England in transforming children’s mental health services, which examines the progress made by the Government in improving children and young people’s mental health services (CAMHS).

The report analyses NHS England’s new ‘Mental Health Five Year Forward View Dashboard’, which tracks the performance of local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, executive director, iHV, commented:

“Clearly there is much to be done to improve child mental health services. Investing upstream into more preventative capacity, such as in health visiting, would help stem the flow of young people requiring help from these services.”

Key findings
  • When assessing the overall performance of children and young people’s mental health services, we find almost three quarters (73.2 per cent) of CCGs failed to meet NHS England’s own benchmark for improving services.
  • In order to meet NHS England’s standard for crisis care performance CCGs must have an agreed plan to develop better local services. However, across England, less than a third of CCGs (31.6 per cent) had a fully funded plan to improve crisis care, with one in nine CCGs (10.5 per cent or 22 in total) having no agreed plan or funding set out.
  • Government policy states that no one under 18 should be treated on an adult ward – yet children spent a total of 2654 nights on an adult ward between July and September 2016. This increased by over a third compared to the last quarter (April to June 2016), although it is not yet possible to establish whether this is due to fluctuation or a longer trend.
  • There is wide variation between CCG’s planned spending per head – with those in the top quarter spending over £52 per capita, while those in the bottom quarter spend just £23, or less. This suggests that there is a postcode lottery in children and young people’s mental health care.
Read report - The performance of the NHS in England in transforming children’s mental health services

iHV welcomes the results of the ‘Women’s Voices’ survey run by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Women with mental health problems during and after pregnancy reveal the impact of low rates of specialist referral, long waits, as well as lack of consensus over medication and little support for their partners, in a survey published today (22 February) by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and supported by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA).

The survey of over 2,300 women who had given birth in the last five years in the UK, explores their experiences of perinatal mental health problems, engagement with healthcare professionals and the quality of care they received.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, executive director, iHV, said:

“The Institute of Health Visiting, a member of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, welcomes the results of the ‘Women’s Voices’ survey run by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and launched today.

“This survey gives real life evidence on the level of support that women receive when suffering from perinatal mental illness (PMI) – and the variation there is in the level of services across the country.  Health visitors are key healthcare professionals who are well-placed to identify and offer support to women suffering with PMI.  However, our own surveys have shown that, although parents will turn to their health visitor for support,  there is often insufficient time for the health visitor to offer the level of support required.

“We, at the iHV, deliver perinatal mental health (PMH) and infant mental health training to ensure standardised practice for health visitor professionals and the families they work with.  Our PMH training has now been delivered to well over 10,000 health visitors and others across England. However, for this training to have the impact it should, more health visitors need the time to use what they have learnt to improve services, especially at the recommended contacts.

“Perinatal mental health is an incredibly important area of healthcare which can have a negative effect on the health and wellbeing of babies and families and ultimately on our society when we don’t recognise it early. Health visitors have always made a huge contribution to supporting pre-school children and their families and are the best-placed professional to help give all children the best start in life during the early years of life.”

Download Maternal Mental Health – Women’s Voices survey report

Read full press release from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

New report from The Communication Trust

Professional development in speech, language and communication – new report from The Communication Trust.

Last summer, more than 1200 members of the children and young people’s workforce, including many health visitors, responded to a survey from The Communication Trust, which asked about their experiences of professional development in speech, language and communication (SLC). Their responses revealed that, although they were nearly unanimous in their belief in the vital importance of children’s SLC skills, there were significant gaps in their professional development in this area. The majority (53%) reported that they had had little to no initial training in typical speech, language and communication development, and 60% had little to no training in identifying and supporting children with speech, language and communication needs.

In England, there are likely to be at least two children in every primary school classroom with a clinically significant language disorder, and many more with delayed language development. The Communication Trust, in partnership with their consortium, works to maximise the impact of the voluntary sector and collaborate with government to devise effective solutions to improve the support that is provided to children and young people.

The Communication Trust has produced a report presenting the findings of their consultation with the workforce and offering recommendations to government and national bodies, local authorities and commissioners, the voluntary sector and training providers, and the workforce and service providers. Their recommendations were developed in consultation with their consortium and other key sector, practitioner, and academic partners.

Download Communication Trust survey report

Speech, Language and Communication Framework (SLCF)

The Communication Trust works to support the workforce in enabling all the children and young people they work with to communicate to the best of their ability through resources such as the newly updated and improved Speech, Language and Communication Framework (SLCF). The SLCF is a free online professional development tool which sets out the skills and knowledge that everyone working with children and young people need in order to support the speech, language and communication development of those they work with. The SLCF self-evaluation tool enables individuals and groups of practitioners to highlight their professional development needs and to find training, resources or information to ‘fill the gaps’ identified by the SLCF.

Find out more about the SLCF

If you have any queries on this, please contact [email protected]

Report: Helping parents to parent

Public policy can have an impact on parenting behaviour and achieve positive outcomes for children, but there is currently a lack of evidence on what works – according to new research by the Social Mobility Commission.

The report says that parenting interventions can be successful – particularly those that focus on parenting styles, the creation of a supportive home learning environment, relationships within the family and parental stress and mental health.

Programmes can give parents a greater understanding of child development, develop parents’ confidence in their role and support both parents to become actively involved in a child’s upbringing.

The ‘Helping parents to parent’ report was commissioned by the Social Mobility Commission to bring together evidence on parenting behaviours and the extend to which public policy can support parents. It examined 28 interventions and programmes in the United Kingdom and internationally.

Key recommendations include:

  1. There is a need for highly trained practitioners to implement and deliver parenting interventions.
  2. There is a need for more family centres or single-access platforms that provide an umbrella of universal parenting support and services and are easily accessible for all families.
  3. Home visiting programmes, or those with a home visiting element, have the potential to deliver more success in improving children’s outcomes.
  4. There is a lack of long-term evidence on parenting interventions and programmes. The government should commission further research on this issue and there needs to be a robust and consistent tool for evaluation.
Download 'Helping parents to parent' report