Tags: strategy

iHV welcomes England’s Men’s Health Strategy

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) welcomes the publication of England’s first-ever Men’s Health Strategy, launched today on International Men’s Day. The Strategy marks an important national commitment to improving health outcomes for men and boys and includes a strong focus on inequalities, mental health and suicide prevention, and supporting men to access care earlier.

Men experience poorer health outcomes across many areas, are less likely to seek help early, and account for three-quarters of all suicides. The Strategy’s focus on improving access, tackling stigma, and meeting men ‘where they are’, including through community settings, workplaces and a new partnership with the Premier League, is therefore strongly welcomed.

The Strategy acknowledges the importance of men’s roles within families and the wider community, recognising that men’s health is shaped across the life course, including during key transitions such as early fatherhood. This aligns strongly with the iHV’s longstanding work to strengthen support for fathers and co-parents. Health visitors play a vital role in engaging fathers during pregnancy, at the birth of their baby, and throughout the early years. In our response to the Men’s Health Strategy consultation earlier this year, and through our wider work in research, training, evidence-based resources and professional guidance, we have continually championed the importance of father-inclusive practice in improving outcomes for the whole family.

The Strategy’s emphasis on strong social, community and family networks, as one of its six key levers for change, reinforces the need for integrated services that recognise fathers as active partners in their child’s health and development. Health visitors are uniquely positioned to support this ambition through their universal contact with families, trusted relationships and expertise in early intervention.

Several areas of the Strategy are directly relevant to health visitors’ work with men and fathers, including:

  • Investing £3.6 million in suicide prevention projects targeting middle-aged men, alongside the Premier League’s Together Against Suicide initiative to tackle stigma and raise awareness in settings where men are already engaged.
  • Improving access to care, including the expansion of neighbourhood health centres and enhanced digital tools within the NHS App, to support earlier help-seeking.
  • £3 million for community-based men’s health programmes, designed to reach underserved groups and those less likely to engage with traditional services.
  • New e-learning for professionals to support men’s health training, which will complement existing father-inclusive practice training within health visiting.
  • A commitment to co-designing services with men, including new fathers, to improve responsiveness and trust.

Dr Sharin Baldwin, iHV Senior Health Visitor Research Lead said:

“The publication of the Men’s Health Strategy is good news for men and for society as a whole. At the iHV, we have been working for many years to highlight the importance of men’s health issues, particularly during the perinatal period. The new Men’s Health Strategy represents a significant step forward. We look forward to working with Government and partners to ensure that fathers and male caregivers are fully included as the strategy is implemented, helping to improve outcomes for men, their children and families, and the wider community.”

Please see:

Government puts children’s first years at the heart of work to improve life chances

iHV welcomes the Government’s newly published Best Start in Life strategy to bring together early years and family services – putting children’s first years at the heart of work to improve life chances.

Over the last few days, the Government has made a number of important policy announcements focused on its Opportunity Mission priority to ensure that every child has the best start in life – these are presented in the new “Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life” strategy which was published yesterday afternoon. The strategy is focused on three main policy areas:

  • Better support for families (including strengthening health visiting)
  • More accessible early education and childcare
  • Improving quality in early years including reception.

The strategy is driven by the recognition that far too many children are not getting the best start in life which they deserve and need. There are many root causes to this – fundamentally, the strategy recognises that, “the attention of leaders, nationally and locally, has for too long been elsewhere”!

Alison Morton, iHV CEO, said:

“We join with others across the sector in welcoming this strategy with its clear focus on the earliest years and the hope that it will finally end the ‘baby blindspot’ that has been the focus of our campaigns for too many years.  We are impatient for change and believe in a better future for our nation’s babies and young children who have so much potential to be healthy, develop and thrive, with the right conditions and support for success.”

The Government aims to build back crucial family services, providing high-quality support to parents, babies and children from pregnancy to age five. This includes:

  • A new Best Start Family Service: To accelerate the process of rebuilding critical family services through renewed drive and fresh investment. It will take the best of the Sure Start, Family Hubs and Start for Life approaches to create Best Start Family Hubs, with a new evidenced-informed core offer for parents, a clear local mission around children’s early development in support of the Plan for Change milestone, and a digital parenting offer. This will be supported by a new national Best Start digital service, linked to ‘My Children’ on the NHS app.
  • Funding Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority: With a commitment to deliver up to 1,000 Best Start Family Hubs across every local authority in England. These services will reach the children and families who will benefit most – those from low-income families and with additional vulnerabilities. Best Start Family Hubs will include professionals working across all local teams, including health and education, and will work with nurseries, childminders, schools, health services, libraries and local voluntary and community groups.
  • Strengthening health services in early childhood: Linking with the ambitions of the 10 Year Health Plan, including the move to a neighbourhood health service, to improve support for families, so every child has the healthiest possible start in life:
    • Better maternity and newborn care: To strengthen services, through the national, independent investigation of maternity and neonatal care, to reduce brain injury in childbirth, and setting new national standards to tackle maternal mortality, focused on the main causes of maternal death and harm.
    • Strengthened health visiting services: With recognition that health visitors “play a vital role providing advice and support and are often the first to spot if a baby or young child needs extra help”. The strategy commits to, “strengthen health visiting services, by reducing variation in the reach and quality of development and health reviews to ensure all families have access to high-quality, personalised support. We will also test new ways of delivering these services to better meet families’ needs”.
    • Making it easier to get vaccinated: Updating the vaccination schedule so children are protected from illnesses such as measles, mumps and rubella sooner, and making it “easier for children to get vaccinated – through their GP, and for some families during health visitor appointments”.
    • Supporting healthy eating: To support the poorest families and tackle child poverty, giving direct support to families most at risk of food poverty, helping them buy nutritious food for their children, including restoring the value of the Healthy Start scheme.
    • Tackling tooth decay: Through the supervised toothbrushing scheme, to reach up to 600,000 three- to five-year-olds in the most deprived areas in England.
    • Making it easier to book appointments and provide a digital alternative to the ‘red book’: giving parents access to support, guidance and their child’s health records, via the NHS App.
  • Accountability and innovation: The Plan for Change states that it will put early childhood outcomes back at the heart of national government priorities, bringing the spotlight for both policy and delivery to the life chances of our youngest children. It will agree with each local authority a clear target, working with health and voluntary and community sector organisations, to improve child development locally. It will work with local leaders and partners to experiment, fix problems, and ensure that it reaches the families who most need help, through the Test Learn and Grow programme.

To support the Government in driving forward this agenda, they will appoint a Best Start in Life Champion. The new Champion will bring early years expertise into the heart of government and will work through the Opportunity Mission to drive forward this change.

Alison added:
 “The commitment to invest in building better health and early years’ education services, alongside a wider commitment to tackle child poverty is long overdue. We are also delighted to see the Government recognise the vital role that health visitors will play in delivering what will be a step change in this country’s focus on our youngest children.

“We look forward to working with the Government, health visiting teams across the country, and partners across the early years’ sector, to turn all of these ambitious plans into reality. We now look to the government to end the uncertainty which is driving ongoing cuts to vital services, and publish full details of the funding and workforce plans that are key ingredients needed to deliver this strategy.”

Read Giving every child the best start in life strategy

Wales Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy

The iHV is delighted to celebrate the launch of the Wales Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and Delivery Plan. Published yesterday, the 10-year plan outlines ambitions to ensure people in Wales live in communities that:

  • promote and support mental health and wellbeing
  • give them the power to improve their mental health and wellbeing
  • are free from stigma and discrimination.

The strategy has been informed and shaped through extensive engagement with the public, people with lived experience and stakeholders, including the iHV, and sets out the key priorities needed to achieve these ambitions.

Specialist Health Visitors for Perinatal Mental Health in Wales have collectively reflected on the strategy, saying:

“We really welcome the focus on the importance of Infant Mental Health and the First 1000 days, particularly on improving support for parent-infant relationships.

“It’s so good to read the individual stories highlighting the important role that health visiting plays in identifying and supporting Perinatal Mental Health and Parent-Infant relationship difficulties.

“We look forward to seeing how the implementation of this strategy develops in Wales, so that all babies not only have the best start, but flourish across their life.”

Hilda Beauchamp, iHV PIMH Lead, says:

“Our submission to the strategy consultation last year urged recognition that good mental health requires a life course approach which includes a focus on the earliest years of life, from conception onwards. We are encouraged to see the all-age approach encompassed in the vision statements and the clear recognition given to the vital role of health visitors. We know that a well-resourced and appropriately trained health visiting workforce can provide clinical and cost-effective care to families. This can prevent mental health issues developing or escalating and ensure that families who need additional support receive it as soon as possible. The character story of Dan and baby Elijah beautifully illustrates the impact of a trusted health visitor relationship in improving paternal mental health and the father-baby relationship.”

Delivery plans to accompany the strategy and ensure best use of resources to achieve the vision will be developed, alongside the development of a ‘theory of change’ to set out the mechanism by which the strategy intends to achieve its outcomes. The success of the strategy in achieving long-term systemic change relies on continued collaboration, partnership working and shared ownership of mental health and wellbeing.

To read the strategy, including an easy read and a children and young people’s version, click here

NHS publishes Vaccination Strategy for all vaccination programmes

Today, NHS England has published the first national Vaccination Strategy, bringing together all vaccination programmes, to protect communities and save lives. The strategy outlines how getting vaccinations will be made easier than ever before, including through expansion of the NHS App, ‘one stop shops’ and community outreach.

Vaccinations provide one of the most effective public health interventions, preventing between 3.5 and 5 million deaths every year across the globe through childhood vaccinations alone. Whilst the UK has a comprehensive childhood immunisation programme, falling rates of vaccine uptake over the last decade are a source of considerable concern. Tackling this issue will require a whole system approach and health visitors have an important role to play.

At the end of October, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued an urgent letter regarding preparedness for measles resurgence in England. Measles is a highly infectious disease which can only be controlled by vaccination. Through their universal work with all families, health visitors can support uptake of the MMR immunisation programme to meet the WHO target of 95% coverage with two doses of MMR vaccine by age 5 years. Achieving this target is essential to maintain measles elimination status for the UK and prevent measles outbreaks from occurring.

The new national Vaccination Strategy outlines three clear priority areas to reverse these downward trends in vaccine uptake and prevent deaths and hospitalisations from vaccine-preventable diseases. These include:

  • Improving access including an expansion of online services: Many more people will be able to book their vaccines online quickly and easily, including via the NHS App. Families will be able to view their full vaccination record with clear information and guidance on what vaccinations they should have to keep them well.
  • Vaccination delivery in convenient local places, with targeted outreach to support uptake in underserved populations: Bespoke outreach services should be tailored to communities that are un- or under-vaccinated, building trust and confidence.
  • A more joined-up prevention and vaccination offer: Vaccination services and activities should be holistic, offering multiple vaccinations for the whole family where appropriate.

The Strategy sets out its plans for improved integration with clinical pathways and greater joint working across all local service providers, including acute, community, mental health and local authorities. Systems should consider how they can:

  • Make vaccination the business of everyone working in patient-facing settings, through training and awareness campaigns. This includes using key contacts to talk to the person about relevant vaccinations, answer questions and, if they cannot deliver the vaccination there and then, signpost to the appropriate services.
  • Base vaccinators in healthcare settings accessed by people who may benefit most from vaccination. This may include emergency departments, outpatient departments, family hubs and community diagnostic centres. The report highlights that, “Family hubs may be especially beneficial for babies and children where parents may be less likely to access a standard offer.”
  • Train and deploy a wider set of professionals to deliver vaccinations. The reports states that, “Local authority services for 0–5 year-olds, for example, have unparalleled contact with underserved communities. Health visiting teams as well as school nursing teams have successfully delivered vaccinations in the past and continue to do so in parts of the country, making use of their extensive skills and relationships. Any such arrangements would need to be locally planned and take into account workforce capacity and funding requirements.”

Whilst the Vaccination Strategy does not set out all the specifics of implementation (and there will be a range of considerations that will need to be addressed), NHS England has indicated that they will continue their work with stakeholders (including the iHV) to develop their plans in order to deliver the proposals. With sufficient resource, there are significant opportunities to build on the work that has already started in Integrated Care Systems to provide more ‘joined-up’ vaccination programmes in the future, across the whole pathway including through integrated neighbourhood, place and system teams.  We are particularly pleased to see the emphasis on reaching all parts of the community, with a specific focus on underserved and marginalised communities that will be needed to tackle widening health inequalities.

Professor Helen Bedford, Professor of Children’s Health, Population, Policy and Practice Programme, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and iHV Expert Adviser: Immunisations, commented:

The UK vaccination programme is among the most successful worldwide, yet there is room for improvement to ensure we offer maximum protection to the population against infectious disease. Each year for the past ten years, small declines in uptake of childhood vaccines, together with large disparities in uptake between geographical areas and social and economic groups, are a cause for concern. If fully implemented, the Vaccination Strategy will be vitally important to ensuring we improve our current position and placing us well to maintain the success of the programme into the future. Through their contacts with families, and the trusting relationships they build, health visitors play a key role in boosting vaccine confidence and in securing the success of the childhood vaccination programme.

Read NHS Vaccination Strategy

Read NHS Vaccination Strategy online

Read iHV Good Practice Points: Promoting the Uptake of Childhood Immunisations which contains advice on health visitors’ role supporting vaccination uptake as part of an integrated approach.

 

iHV submits response to Children’s social care strategy and consultation

The Institute of Health Visiting submitted its response to the Children’s social care strategy: Stable Homes, Built on Love on 10 May 2023. The Department for Education (DfE) has been seeking views on their proposals to reform children’s social care. The vision for reform of children’s social care responds to recommendations made by three[1] independent reviews. The vision is underpinned by the fundamental principle of the Children Act 1989 – that children’s welfare is paramount.

The vision aims to rebalance children’s social care away from costly crisis intervention to more meaningful and effective help for families, so that it achieves the outcomes that children deserve. Achieving this will require a major reset that puts love and stable relationships at the heart of what children’s social care does.

DfE has promised to take action across six pillars to transform children’s social care:

  • Pillar one: Family Help provides the right support at the right time so that children can thrive with their families
  • Pillar two: A decisive multi-agency child protection system
  • Pillar three: Unlocking the potential of family networks
  • Pillar four: Putting love, relationships and a stable home at the heart of being a child in care
  • Pillar 5: A valued, supported and highly-skilled social worker for every child who needs one
  • Pillar 6: A system that continuously learns and improves, and makes better use of evidence and data

The consultation focuses on  their proposed response to various recommendations including:

  • Support and protection for children and families
  • Support for kinship carers, and wider family networks
  • Reforms to the experience of being in care, including corporate parenting
  • Support for the workforce
  • Delivery and system reform

In our response, we recognised that this consultation provides an ideal opportunity for much greater collaboration and a joined-up cross-departmental approach to child safeguarding and early help between the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care. Whilst there is reference to the importance of ‘close integration with the wider support system’ in the proposals, more weight needs to be given to the ‘upstream’ functions of prevention, early identification of need, and early intervention below the threshold for children’s social care. These represent a significant gap throughout the whole vision. We urged the review team to take advantage of this opportunity to develop a whole system response for babies, children and families from the heart of government to frontline practice, including a dedicated budget for prevention and early intervention to support more seamless and integrated support for families and at the scale needed to respond to growing levels of need.

You can read the iHV’s response to the Children’s social care strategy and Consultation: Stable Homes, Built on Love here.

The iHV would like to say a huge heartfelt thank you to our iHV Safeguarding Expert Advisers for their expert advice and guidance when writing this evidence submission:

  • Dr Michael Fanner – Strategic Advisor – Global Safeguarding, Specialist Research, Education and Training and Safeguarding in Health
  • Trish Stewart – Associate Director of Safeguarding for Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust
Read iHV’s response to the Children's social care strategy and Consultation: Stable Homes, Built on Love

[1] The three reviews are: The Competition and Markets Authority’s Children’s Social Care market study 2022; Child Protection in England 2022; and the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care 2022.