Speaking to BBC News, RCPCH Officer for Health Services, Dr Ronny Cheung said:
We have hundreds of thousands of children waiting for essential care, particularly within our community services. Paediatricians and other child health professionals are working exceptionally hard, but chronic underinvestment and a lack of focus on children’s health and services have meant that staff are unable to meet increasing demand.
As a paediatrician, I’m very concerned about what these persistent waits mean for our children and their future. Long waits are unacceptable for any patient, but for children and young people the waits can be catastrophic. Many treatments need to be given by a specific age or developmental stage to prevent long lasting complications, and for many children these long waits mean we miss crucial chances to intervene in time.
Despite this, children continue to face much longer waits than adults. As it stands, over 25% of children waiting for community health services are waiting over a year, compared to just 1.2% of adults waiting the same amount of time. This is a shameful inequality that has been allowed to continue for far too long.
We know that the Government is asking ICBs to reduce their year long waits. Welcome though that is, there is a risk that this inequality gets worse, not better, unless we have a commitment that long ignored children’s waits will be a key focus in this work. This is critical to ensuring that our children can have the best possible start in life, and key to the Government’s goal of creating the ‘healthiest generation ever’.