- Shifting care from hospitals to community settings
- Digital transformation
- Focus on prevention.
Following the publication of Lord Darzi's report into the NHS, the initiative aims to address the NHS’s current crisis and build a sustainable, patient-centred health service for the future. The College will engage with the development of this plan and, if you are in England, urges members to get involved wherever possible. This is your opportunity to make the case for children’s health and the direction of the health service over the next ten years.
We want to ensure children are at the centre of this plan. In the coming weeks, we will set out further detail on how we can support you. In the meantime, our recently published blueprint for child health services will provide you with a starter for ten and if you have the opportunity to attend an engagement session, our health policy team is here to help. Get in touch via health.policy@rcpch.ac.uk.
Responding to the launch of the 10 Year Health Plan engagement exercise, Dr Mike McKean, Vice-President for Policy, said:
Today’s launch is an important step that we hope brings us closer to turning around the unacceptable state of children’s health. Despite the extraordinary efforts of paediatricians across the country, children now wait too long for treatment as services that are meant to be there to care for children are desperately stretched. Where sickness can be prevented, we are failing too many children. Vaccination rates are declining, obesity rates rising and mental health problems soaring. The government commissioned Darzi Review set out in stark detail the consequences of years of children being overlooked or ignored at a national policy level.
The Prime Minister noted the most damning finding of the Darzi Review is the declining physical and mental health of our children. The launch of this national conversation is now an opportunity to engage on much-need solutions. It is vital that children’s physical and mental health is a parity of focus alongside adult care. They must be central to the government’s three shifts and throughout the public and patient engagement exercise.
With this principle of children at the centre in mind alongside the diverse experience and knowledge of our membership and the practical steps in our blueprint for child health services and wider policy work, we look forward to engaging with the development of this plan to help create an NHS that more effectively prevents ill health in childhood and supports the best possible care for children who need it.
Update, 8 November - we published a policy briefing which outlines our four overarching recommendations to Government and how members can engage with the plan
Update, 4 December - we published the RCPCH and RCPCH &Us submissions, which were made to the Change NHS Portal in early December