Therapeutic Play and Children’s Healthcare

Debate between Tom Hayes and Ashley Dalton

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ashley Dalton]

As I stated earlier, we are promoting the Play Well toolkit right across the country through a variety of communication methods. We look forward to a variety of healthcare settings using that toolkit to deliver in their local areas.

That moves me on to mental health. Under this Government, all children will have access to a mental health support team in their school or college by the end of this Parliament. We are also committed to opening 50 Young Futures hubs over the next four years, which will bring together services to help young people at a community level. There have been calls for us to go further on the children’s health workforce. The Minister for Secondary Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), is absolutely committed to making sure that we have the right skills to care for patients, including children, when they need it. We are working through the changes and what they will mean for different professional groups. I know that mental health will be at the top of the agenda, not least for children.

Health play therapists are trained through foundation degrees. The toolkit that has been developed sets out clearly how services should support practical training of specialists. Games and active play build social and emotional skills and support children’s wellbeing. We want every child to feel safe from harm and for their families to feel supported. We know that the poorest children are more likely to develop long-term illnesses. That is why it is shameful that child poverty has increased by 700,000 since 2010.

With more than 4 million children now living in poverty in the UK and 800,000 children using food banks to eat, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor took the necessary decision to fund the biggest reduction in child poverty of any Budget this century. We are expanding free school meals to half a million kids whose parents are on low incomes, and lifting hundreds of thousands out of poverty by removing the two-child benefit cap.

In addition, there is a £126 million funding boost for the family hubs and Start for Life programme this financial year. Best Start family hubs will be rolled out to every local authority from April. We have kept our manifesto promise to restrict junk food advertising targeted at children. We have announced improvements to the soft drink industry levy, and we have invested £11 million in local authorities to deploy supervised toothbrushing for three to five-year-olds in schools and nurseries in the most deprived areas of England.

On neighbourhood health, my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead raised an important point about multidisciplinary teams for children and young people, which should take an holistic approach to looking after children. The aim is to embed general paediatricians in primary care to give specialist paediatric advice and reduce the need for out-patient paediatric referrals. Those discussions ideally bring together wider health, social care and educational specialists. The make-up of the teams is locally determined by integrated care boards, but play specialists could absolutely be involved as part of a neighbourhood team.

[Tom Hayes]

I am pleased that the Government committed £18 million to playground investment in the Budget. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should include health play professionals in the NHS workforce plan? Would she advocate for that as part of the plan?

[Ashley Dalton]

As my hon. Friend will have noticed, I referred to the workforce plan. My hon. Friend the Minister for Secondary Care will consider all areas of the workforce and what should be included. Play specialists could be involved; their use is most appropriate in teams that give face-to-face patient care, for example when a GP and a paediatrician hold a joint clinic in a GP practice.

The majority of case discussions are held virtually, without the patient or family in attendance. There is probably less need for play specialists to support children in those circumstances, but we do encourage the use of the Play Well kit, to ensure that children’s needs are taken into consideration throughout the healthcare process. For the first time, in the recently published guidance, we require NHS providers to consider children in the roll-out of all services.

The Government are cutting waiting lists, giving children a healthier start in life and lifting half a million children out of poverty. This year—2026—will be critical, as we roll out the Best Start in Life hubs to every local authority in April, while rolling out neighbourhood health hubs and implementing the 10-year plan. The Government fundamentally believe in the importance of play. I am sure all my right hon. and hon. Friends would agree that we could do with a little bit more play in our lives, including in this place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) pointed out, all play is therapeutic, and we would all benefit from a little more play. I stand ready to work with NHS England, my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead and Starlight to make this a decisive year for children’s health.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Hayes and Ashley Dalton

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

Coastal constituencies such as mine in Bournemouth East suffer significant health inequalities. What are the Government doing to address them, and will the Minister meet me and coastal Labour MPs to address the issue?

[Ashley Dalton]

My hon. Friend is right: coastal communities face unique challenges when it comes to health inequalities. I will shortly attend the all-party group for coastal communities, where I will meet him and colleagues to discuss these issues.