Welcome focus on falling health outcomes for younger people but changes to wider policy needed

Responding to Labour's Child Health Action Plan, Nuffield Trust Chief Executive Thea Stein said:

“Maintaining and improving the health of children and young people is of the utmost importance. This analysis from Labour highlights really significant falling health outcomes for younger people and we have seen a dramatic increase in waiting times following the pandemic.

“Much of this had been already announced but it does provide a welcome focus to ensure that recovering children’s access to services and, of equal importance, a focus on their wider health and wellbeing is central to all of their thinking. A mission delivery board could help to bring more attention to these efforts but is unclear if it will receive any additional resources, be able to incentivise progress, be able to intervene or what powers it will have – without knowing these important factors it is hard to know whether it will have traction or not.

“Children’s health is everyone’s responsibility and ill health is not the result of individual action alone. Changes will need to be made to wider policy including housing and addressing falling living standards if we are really to tackle the root of poor UK child health which in many cases is the result of the impact of poverty."