Charity's action call on 'worsening' child health

Clinicians have reported a rise in diseases in children that "should have been eradicated", according to a charity

"Worsening health and wellbeing" in children means the NHS needs radical reform, according to a Merseyside hospital charity backed by academics.

Alder Hey Children's Charity, attached to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, said clinicians were seeing rising numbers of diseases in children which "should have been eradicated" – including measles and rickets.

Charity chief executive Fiona Ashcroft said increasing inequality was "limiting the life chances" of children growing up in the UK today.

The charity is set to launch its Put Children First campaign at the hospital later, which calls on the government to create a "children centred NHS".

It said changes to the way decisions are made could help save some of the £39 billion it says is lost each year due to health inequalities - as spending on public services is higher in areas with high rates of child poverty.

The Department of Health and Social Care said it had an "ambitious strategy" to "shift focus from treatment to prevention".

Ms Ashcroft said she and her colleagues had been compelled to speak out after listening to children, parents and clinicians who are "witnessing first hand worsening health and wellbeing due to poverty and social inequality".

Worrying trends

As well as diseases dating back to Victorian times, she said children were being referred for treatment usually seen in adults such as lung disease and obesity.

The charity said Covid measures also accelerated a rise in mental illness in children and young people.

She said: "Children have not been a political priority for over a decade - and the health service has not been designed or commissioned with children and young people in mind."

The charity called for the government to appoint a children's health representative to inform the ministerial taskforce on child poverty.

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It also said NHS reforms should include the creation of a "commissioning framework" especially for children to make the most of limited resources, and that a children’s representative should be on every mission delivery board across government.

University of Liverpool Professor David Taylor Robinson, who is also an honorary consultant in public health at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, joined the call for a re-think, describing recent trends in child health indicators as "extremely worrying".

"We must tackle child poverty, reinvest in preventative services, and develop a national strategy to address health inequalities", he said.

In a statement, the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Too many children are not receiving the start in life or they care they deserve.

“We will fix the NHS and create the healthiest generation of children in our history by shifting focus from treatment to prevention, starting by banning junk food ads aimed at children.

“Our cross-government child poverty taskforce will develop an ambitious strategy to give children the best start in life.”