iHV welcomes findings of RCPCH State of Child Health report

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) welcomes the findings of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) landmark report into the State of Child Health which calls for Government to introduce a comprehensive, national, child health and wellbeing strategy, reverse cuts to public health, and tighten controls over smoking, the sale of alcohol and advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar.

According to the report, a lack of strategic national focus and persistence of a wide gap between rich and poor in the UK is damaging the health of the nation’s infants, children and young people. Compiled by child health experts, with input from children and young people themselves, the report provides clear recommendations to improve child health.

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

“The Institute of Health Visiting welcomes the findings of the report and fully supports all its recommendations. The snapshot of children’s health in the UK captured in this State of Child Health report is very worrying and upsetting. As a nation, we can’t afford to not invest in our children as they are our future, yet recently their needs seem to have become invisible against the many competing demands being made on government and the NHS. We know so much today with respect to what can influence children’s outcomes across their life course, and in turn benefit the whole country. It’s time to act, to help ensure the best health outcomes for all UK children today, and in the future, by giving them the best start in life. As an absolute priority and first step, the cuts to public health budgets must be stopped.”

The State of Child Health report brings together data for the first time on a comprehensive list of 25 measures of the health of UK children, ranging from specific conditions such as asthma, diabetes and epilepsy, risk factors for poor health such as obesity and a low rate of breastfeeding, to child deaths. The data provide an “across the board” snapshot of child health and wellbeing in the UK.

Nearly one in five children in the UK is living in poverty and inequality is blighting their lives, with those from the most deprived backgrounds experiencing much worse health compared with the most affluent. Despite some improvements in the health of UK children over the last decades, there is clear disparity with Europe and other developed countries, and major cause for concern.

Dr Adams added:

“We at the iHV will be working with the RCPCH to support their campaign to ensure child health becomes a key political priority, as only then will the prime minister’s aspirations for reducing inequalities become a reality.”

State of Child Health report:

Available on Thursday 26 January – www.rcpch.ac.uk/state-of-child-health

Read RCPCH press release

‘The economics of health visiting: a universal preventative child and family health promotion programme’ report launched

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) is delighted to announce the publication of its new report “The economics of health visiting: a universal preventative child and family health promotion programme”, which reviews the economic impact of early intervention services on the lives of children, families and society.

This is a member only document. Non health visitors who work in public health related areas may join the iHV as Friends to access all our documents. As a charity, the iHV relies on its member income to produce such documents.

Early intervention is taking action as soon as possible to tackle problems for children and families before they become more difficult to reverse. According to the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF), damaging social problems affecting young people such as mental health problems, going into care, unemployment and youth crime costs the Government almost £17 billion a year. However, research has proven that investment in early childhood development saves long-term costs and improves children’s outcomes – and the earlier the investment, the greater the return.

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

“The earliest years of children’s lives have a powerful influence on their subsequent development and health, with benefits both to themselves and to society that last beyond childhood – and health visitors play a critical role in these early years.

Our report shows that early years interventions, such as those covered by the universal health visiting service, deliver both social and economic benefits, including reducing long-term costs and improving outcomes, as well as increasing the economic productivity of the population.”

The focus of health visiting, an advanced and specialist public health nursing service, is the whole population of children in the foundation years (from pregnancy to age five). In particular, health visitors engage on a universal basis with the families of all children in the first ‘1001 critical days’ from conception to age two. This is described as the ‘age of opportunity’ (WAVE Trust, 2014) when the impact of social and other adversity can become biologically embedded in brain development – showing in a child’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical developmental outcomes.

Dr Adams added:

“Investing in an early intervention service, such as universal health visiting, reduces inequalities in the earliest years of a child’s life – giving all children the most important thing, the best start in life.”

Download The economics of health visiting: a universal preventative child and family health promotion programme report

iHV supports MMHA response to DH’s Safer Maternity Care report

The iHV supports the Maternal Mental Health Alliance’s (MMHA’s) response to yesterday’s publication of the Department of Health report ‘Safer Maternity Care: Next steps towards the national maternity ambition’.

MMHA highlights the mention of perinatal mental health in the report (on page 17) – but would really like to push for mums’ mental health to be embedded across all of the actions coming out of the report. Maternity safety is not just physical health: unless women’s mental health is looked after, their and their babies’ lives could also be at risk.

Dr Cheryll Adams, Executive Director iHV said:

“iHV supports the push by MMHA to keep maternal mental health at the forefront of the government’s drive to improve maternity care. We welcome the implementation of this plan, including maternal mental health, and call on the government to ensure that specialist mental health support is available in every maternity /health visiting service to provide support to every mother and her family who require this service.”

Dr Alain Gregoire, Chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, commented:

“We welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State of a Safer Maternity Care action plan and the inclusion of improvements in perinatal mental health care in this. Mental illnesses are the most common serious health complications of pregnancy and the postnatal period, and a major cause of maternal death. There has been no sign of improvement in the effects of these illnesses on mothers and their babies in the past decades, despite significant improvements in physical health outcomes.”

Read Dr Alain Gregoire's full response and suggestions about how mental health could be embedded into the key themes and recommendations in the report

MMHA update: Independent Evaluation launch and funding announcement

As a partner and a member of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA) operations group, the iHV is delighted to share this good news.

Launch of independent evaluation of Everyone’s Business Campaign

Today, Tuesday 19 July, sees the launch of the independent evaluation of the MMHA Everyone’s Business Campaign.

This evaluation highlights the substantial impact the campaign has had; the reasons for the impact, and where the campaign will need to focus in the future.

Please find below the direct links to the Briefing Paper (just two pages) and the full report:

2 page briefing paper, with a summary of the report's main findings

Copy of the full independent report

Please use #everyonesbusiness when mentioning in social media!

MMHA Everyone’s Business Funding announcement

Also, hot off the press, fantastic news! Comic Relief confirmed that the follow-up funding for the MMHA and the Everyone’s Business Campaign has been secured! See below:

A grant of £750,000 has been secured from Comic Relief. This is intended to:

sustain and build on the momentum of the first Phase of the Everyone’s Business Campaign
increase the Maternal Mental Health Alliance’s internal resource and capacity

The grant will continue to be hosted by Action on Postpartum Psychosis (APP) on behalf of the MMHA

MMHA says:

a huge thank you for all your on-going support – the outcomes of the evaluation and further funding is a reflection of how well the alliance has worked collectively.

Early Intervention Foundation publishes their Foundations for Life research report

EIF - Foundations for Life: What Works to Support Parent Child Interaction in the Early Years

This report seeks to look at the cost effectiveness of different programmes to support the development of healthy attachment. It is hoped to be of value to commissioners trying to decide where to spend their money.

Inevitably it’s been a challenging piece of work to do and some of the conclusions are being seen as controversial. For example, the originator and iHV ambassador of the MESCH programme in the UK, Professors Lynn Kemp and Sarah Cowley respectively, have been very disappointed at the fact that MESCH has been included in the attachment section, whereas it is a broad-based multi-faceted programme delivered as part of a universal service, rather than a targeted programme focused on attachment.

Please see their statement about the MESCH programme here

Dr Cheryll Adams, iHV director said:

“This report must be interpreted with extreme care. It was a very difficult piece of work to embark on and some of the recommendations will be seen as very surprising or disappointing. Indeed, there could even be an interpretation that it challenges the value of universal services, although that wasn’t at all its purpose.

We would challenge the report for promoting the commissioning of early intervention services to respond to overt problems which the EIF identifies as risk. This suggests intervention from age 2-3 years onwards, instead of the health visitor interpretation of early intervention where the recognition of risk is in the first year of life and intervening then when interventions can be most effective.

We must encourage commissioners to invest in services upstream of problems. Even if the evidence for the value of doing this hasn’t been invested in, there is a clear logic that prevention is better than cure. For example, how much better to pick up glue ear affecting hearing early, rather than speech delay and its social and emotional consequences at age 2½.”

We encourage health visitors to read the report and let us and the EIF know their thoughts on its value for strengthening commissioning to improve children’s lives. Also to be ready to challenge inappropriate commissioning decisions based on its findings.

New report – Better Mental Health For All: A public health approach to mental health improvement

The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) is today [Wednesday 15 June] publishing a ground-breaking report about public mental health, which makes the case for improving mental health for everyone and preventing mental health problems.

“Better Mental Health For All: a public health approach to mental health improvement” is the work of the FPH’s Mental Health Committee in conjunction with the Mental Health Foundation. Public Health England supported the project financially, which enabled the FPH to commission the Mental Health Foundation’s involvement and support for production.

Go to Better Mental Health For All report

Report – Better Mental Health For All
A public health approach to mental health improvement

Professor John Ashton, President of FPH, said: “Mental illness affects everyone – either through our own experience, or our family and friends. Mental, emotional or psychological problems account for more disability than all physical health problems put together. There can be no health without mental health.”

This report focuses on what can be done individually and collectively to enhance the mental health of individuals, families and communities by using a public health approach. It is intended as a resource for public health practitioners to support the development of knowledge and skills in public mental health.

Section one – maps out why mental health is an important and often overlooked aspect of overall health.
Section two – outlines the risk and protective factors through the life course and across communities.
Section three – addresses approaches and interventions to improve mental healthat different stages of the life course and in different settings.
Section four – offers a practical guide to enable practitioners to support their own mental wellbeing.

Nursing Associate role to go ahead!

A new role that will sit alongside existing nursing care support workers and fully-qualified registered nurses to deliver hands-on care moved a step closer today as Health Education England (HEE) published the response to its recent consultation on the Nursing Associate role. The consultation attracted more than 1,000 responses from individuals including patients, members of the public and a wide range of organisations including professional bodies, trade unions, health care and social care providers and commissioners of healthcare.

The role will be given the title Nursing Associate. In order to get the implementation of the Nursing Associate role right, HEE intends to appoint ‘test sites’. Five workshops will take place in England in July so that HEE can engage with stakeholders on the scope of practice of the new role. Early test sites will recruit 1,000 students to start training for the new role in 2017.

HEE will run five events in July across England, where they will invite people and organisations to help draw up the scope of practice for the role. The dates and locations are set out below and bookings will be open soon, via Eventbrite – more information will be available on the HEE website.

1 July            Birmingham
15 July           London
20 July           Manchester
22 July           Reading
29 July           Newcastle

Join Lisa Bayliss-Pratt, HEE’s Nursing Director, for a Twitter chat on the @WeNurses platform on Tuesday 7 June (8-9pm) to debate areas of the consultation and ask questions using the hashtag #shapeofcaring. They will also running a webinar, the details of which will be available at the HEE website.

Slight falls in annual stillbirth and neonatal death rates, MNI report finds

Research published shows the wide regional variation in the incidence of stillbirth and neonatal deaths in the UK.

The report – part of the Maternal, Newborn and Infant outcome review programme and carried out by MBRRACE-UK – focuses on stillbirth and neonatal death rates among babies born at 24 weeks of gestation or more.

The study found that in 2014 there was a slight fall in both the stillbirth and neonatal death rates – 4.16 and 1.77 per 1,000 total births compared to 4.2 and 1.84 in 2013 – although this pattern was not uniform across the UK.

However, behind these headline figures significant regional variations remain, not solely explained by factors that often influence mortality rates, such as poverty, mother’s age, multiple birth and ethnicity.

Understanding the public health practitioner workforce report

The Centre for Workforce Intelligence (CfWI) has published the report: “Understanding the public health practitioner workforce”.

This report was jointly commissioned by the Department of Health (DH), Health Education England (HEE) and Public Health England (PHE) to gather information on the public health practitioner workforce in England. The study is to inform and support stakeholder decisions relating to the future of the public health practitioner workforce and their impact on population health and wellbeing.

The report includes a summary of the regulatory bodies responsible for members of this workforce, a proposed definition of a ‘public health practitioner’ for use in future discussions and workforce planning, and examples of the roles filled by public health practitioners.

Through a mixture of stakeholder interviews and desk research, this CfWI study has found:

Practitioners may come from a wide variety of backgrounds, with a mixture of qualifications. Some may belong to registered professions, but many do not.
As a result, there is a broad range of job titles and definitions in use to describe the role of a public health practitioner, with no consistency across or even within sectors.
There are also multiple routes for becoming a practitioner and for developing a career as a practitioner; some undergo further training to become a public health specialist but for most there is no linear career progression.
Due to the diverse nature of the workforce, data on workforce numbers for public health practitioners is sparse. Counting the practitioner workforce at a local and national level would help employers and policymakers to make decisions on service planning.
Practitioner registration schemes have mixed backing from stakeholders.
Better understanding of the practitioner workforce will help the system to manage the financial and demand pressures that are being identified in other CfWI public health studies.

Read the report

Losing in the long run report is published

Losing in the Long Run report, produced by Action for Children in partnership with the National Children’s Bureau and The Children’s Society, calls for a renewed commitment from Government to vital early intervention services that support children, young people, and families.

It shows that although local councillors believe in the value of early intervention services, they are concerned that maintaining spending on services, like children’s centres, will get more challenging.

The report asks whether further reductions are sustainable and desirable, providing evidence from local councillors, young people and parents about the value of early intervention, and the impact that funding reductions have on the availability of these services locally.

Go to Losing in the Long Run report