Health policy at RCPCH

The RCPCH Health Policy team supports members and Officers in making and shaping health service policy and standards to improve outcomes for children and young people. 

 Our priorities for 2012 are:

• Strengthen child safeguarding  in the NHS including relaunch of the Child Protection Companion

• Develop our specialist and intercollegiate activity through shared information, projects, standards and groups

• Ensure the changes to the NHS improve care for children and support our members to achieve it locally

• Auditing the “Facing the Future” standards  and supporting implementation

• Tackling childhood obesity through a range of projects and influencing activity

• Improving standards of care for children and young people held in secure settings

Our health policy work includes:

• Coordinating input to Government, Department of Health (DH) and other bodies’ developments, where there may be an impact on the healthcare of children and young people. Visit our consultations or position statements  pages for more information.
• Providing a policy briefing service to members and Officers, summarising current developments in healthcare and developing position statements using member expertise.
• Working with the press and media team and speciality members to ensure that our media responses and press releases are timely, accurate and pertinent. Our RCPCH news feed is regularly updated to include the latest in policy news.
• Linking with other Colleges, the Department of Health and organisations to anticipate new ways of working for children's and young people's services. See our service configuration pages for the latest developments across the UK.
• Responding to relevant enquiries through the College helpline and website. You can contact the College with a general enquiry.
• Running 'policy breakfasts' bringing together senior influencers to take forward thinking on topics like youth offending, public health, commissioning, the Kennedy report, with breakfasts planned on child protection, mental health, international work, the SEN and Disability Green Paper and urgent care.
• Supporting nine College committees – managing administration and supporting development and publication of standards and handbooks. More information to follow.

Contact

The health policy team comprises four full-time staff.  You can contact them through the links below: