RCPCH Vice-President for Policy, Dr Mike McKean, said:
The prioritisation of long-neglected children’s health services is crucial to the Government’s commitment of creating the healthiest generation ever. A recent survey showed 80% of paediatricians feel there is not an appropriate level of capacity within their local services to meet current demand. Despite the best efforts of the child health workforce, chronic underinvestment and a lack of focus on children in health policy has left our children with some of the worst health outcomes in Europe.
While we have recently seen a number of positive announcements related to NHS funding and the prevention of ill health in children, we remain none the wiser about the future of our paediatric services. We know from past experience that when children and young people are not explicitly mentioned in funding and policy plans, they are often forgotten about completely. This we believe, has led to the deterioration in too many children’s services over the last decade or so.
Paediatricians refuse to accept a two-tier healthcare system where services for adults are invested in, while children are left behind. We strongly believe that the supported and empowered workforce our children deserve is well within our grasp. As members of the Children and Young People’s Health Policy Influencing Group (HPIG) we are providing our Government with clear solutions that can recover our child health services and ensure they meet our shared goal of creating a healthy, happy generation of children and young people.