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WRITTEN MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
&
DEPARTMENT FOR CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES
Thursday, 12 February 2008
Strategy for Children and Young People’s Health
Today my Right Honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health, Alan
Johnson, and I are announcing the publication of Healthy lives, brighter
futures: The strategy for children and young people’s health.
We cannot overstate the importance of children and young people’s health. A
healthy start in life is at the heart of a happy childhood and the ability of every
young person to achieve their potential and grow up well prepared for the
challenges of adolescence and adulthood.
Children and young people are healthier than ever before, but we now have
the opportunity to go further. We need to do more to achieve world-class
health outcomes and minimise health inequalities, offering services of the
highest quality and an excellent experience for the young people and their
families who use them.
We know that we must do more to provide mothers and fathers with the
support they need to give their children the best start and to help young
people to make healthy choices as they grow up and take more responsibility
for themselves.
Our two departments have come together to produce this long-term strategy
to improve health outcomes for all children and young people from pre-birth to
19. It is a direct response to the views and concerns of young people, parents
and professionals working with children and families.
Healthy lives, brighter futures sets out how we will work in partnership with
local authorities and Primary Care Trusts and those working across children’s
health services to build the quality of support for families at key stages in their
children’s lives – during pregnancy and the early years of children’s lives, for
school-age children as well as young people. Our package of support for
children and young people with acute and additional health needs is backed
by a total of £770 million funding over three years to 2010-11, the largest ever
investment in these services.
Investing in children’s health from the early years through childhood and
adolescence will benefit children, families, society and the NHS.
We have met many children, young people, parents and practitioners in the
process of putting this strategy together Children and young people want
easier access to health services to support their psychological as well as
physical health. Parents and carers want better information about what
services are available locally, with better links between the services that their
children use. Frontline staff want help with providing excellent, integrated
health and health care services for children and families.
Through High Quality Care for All: NHS Next Stage Review Final Report we
set out how the NHS would meet the challenges of the 21st century. Healthy
lives, brighter futures sets out how we will continue to deliver improvements in
children’s physical and psychological health, building on existing policies such
as the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity
Services and the Every Child Matters reforms.
The Strategy builds on work already in train to improve the quality and
consistency of services, support and opportunities that families and children
can expect in their local area. Services already aim to promote healthy
lifestyles, intervene early where health problems arise and deliver support
tailored to families’ needs: easily accessible support in pregnancy and early
years of children’s life through Sure Start Children’s Centres and GP
practices; helping children to take increasing personal responsibility for their
health during their school years and young people to deal with the health
challenges of adolescence; good access to urgent care; and specialist
support for children with complex and long-term conditions, so that every child
can reach their full potential.
Through the Strategy we are making commitments to improve this existing
support for children, young people and families:

during pregnancy and the early years of life, more health visitors, and a
strengthened role for Sure Start Children’s Centres with each centre
having access to a named health visitor; further expansion of the
successful Family Nurse Partnership programme for vulnerable firsttime mothers; and the development and testing of a new Antenatal and
Preparation for Parenthood Programme for mothers and fathers;

for school-age children and their families, a core health programme,
the development of a ‘Healthy Child Programme’ to set out what
services should be available to parents, children and young people
from 5 to 19 with schools supporting pupils’ health and wellbeing, and
pilots to test the impact of extending free school meals to a greater
number of pupils; and

for young people, more opportunities for sport, access to health
services that are young-people friendly, and a new campaign to
increase young people’s knowledge of effective contraceptive methods,
backed by increased investment of around £27 million a year from
2008-09 for contraceptive services in a range of settings.
The Strategy emphasises the need to ensure that high quality, timely and
accessible support is available for children and young people with acute or
additional health needs and their families. We are making new commitments
to strengthen that support:

confirmation of £340 million in NHS allocations over three years to
improve the experience of disabled children and their families through
better access to short breaks, community equipment and wheelchair
services, including £30 million for palliative care and end-of-life care, in
addition to the £340 million revenue funding already announced by
DCSF for the Aiming High for Disabled Children programme and the
£90 million capital funding announced in the Children’s Plan; and

we will test innovative approaches to the provision of community
equipment and make sure that by 2010 all children with complex health
needs have individual care plans to support co-ordinated care.
Improving children’s health from birth to 19 is an ambitious agenda. In order
to drive change in every area, we know that we need stronger joint leadership
to plan, commission and monitor the delivery of excellent services. The
strategy sets out how we will help those on the frontline make a reality of this
vision.
The Strategy sets out a clear expectation that Children’s Trust partners are to
provide children and families with accessible and comprehensive information
about the services, advice and support available locally. New commitments to
support local provision include action to:

promote stronger joint leadership and local accountability
arrangements, with statutory Children’s Trust Boards to include GP
members as well as Primary Care Trusts;

ensure all organisations with responsibility for child health and
wellbeing are fulfilling their statutory responsibilities for safeguarding
children;

develop the child health workforce, with a particular early focus on
health visitors;

deliver a support programme for local authorities and PCTs to
commission child health services;

strengthen the information available to help plan, monitor and improve
services; and

give a stronger voice for children and young people in assessments of
healthcare organisations, and robust arrangements to promote and
ensure the quality of health services.
With schools, GP practices, hospitals, Sure Start Children’s Centres, the
voluntary sector and government all playing their part in support of families,
we can ensure that every child has a healthy start in life and a brighter future.
Working together, we can continue to work towards our goal to make this the
best place in the world to grow up.
Copies of Healthy lives brighter futures: The strategy for children and young
people’s health and the accompanying guidance on joint commissioning will
be placed in the libraries of both Houses.