Report | RCPCH

Document

State of Child Health 2026: Headline recommendations

Our 12 indicators provide a practical framework for current and future governments to track and measure progress on children’s health outcomes. We make three key recommendations: improve data, set national targets and invest in children’s health.

Health policy

Document

State of Child Health 2026: Mental health

This indicator explores the prevalence of mental health conditions in children and young people. Comparisons across the UK are challenging due to the lack of routine, standardised data collection that enables consistent tracking of trends over time.

Mental health

Health policy

Document

State of Child Health 2026: Injuries

This indicator measures the rate of emergency hospital admissions due to injury in children per 1,000 population in England, Scotland and Wales. There are no comparable data available for Northern Ireland. Data on emergency admissions by injury cause is not readily available. Scotland and Wales...

Emergency medicine

Ambulance services

Health policy

Document

State of Child Health 2026: Child mortality

This indicator examines child mortality rates across the UK, measured as the age-standardised rate of death from all causes among children and young people aged 1–17 years per 100,000 population.

Health policy

Public health

Document

State of Child Health 2026: Asthma

This indicator measures the rate of emergency admissions to hospital due to asthma in children and young people in Scotland and England, measured per 100,000 population. There are no comparable data available for Wales and Northern Ireland.

Community child health

Document

State of Child Health 2026: Substance misuse

This indicator analyses trends in drug and alcohol use among young people. However, there are current limitations to this indicator, as there is no shared, standardised measure of substance misuse prevalence across the nations.

Health policy

Alcohol

Document

State of Child Health 2026: Infant mortality

Infant mortality is defined as the death of a child under the age of one year and is measured as deaths per 1,000 live births. This includes the neonatal (first 28 days) and post-neonatal (28 days to 1 year) periods.

Child and adolescent mortality

Health policy

Infant health

Document

State of Child Health 2026: Immunisations

This indicator examines the rates of uptake of two doses of the MMR vaccine by age 5 and uptake of the 6-in-1 vaccine by 12 months in each of the four nations and how those have changed over time, as a proxy for vaccination uptake in general.

Immunology

Vaccination

Resource

Paediatric workforce later careers survey: report (2026)

Senior paediatricians play a vital role in delivering high-quality services. However, as they move into the later stages of their careers, the nature of their work can change significantly. To better understand these changes, we surveyed consultant paediatricians and specialty and specialist (SAS) d...

Workforce

Resource

Thrive Paediatrics: National report 2025

The RCPCH Thrive Paediatrics programme explores how to prioritise the wellbeing of the child health workforce while addressing underlying workplace challenges, with best practice examples, resources and community networks. Our national report, published in December 2025 and available to download bel...

Workforce

Thrive Paediatrics

Wellbeing for health professionals