Found: Alongside the impact on physical health, children and young people with obesity may experience poorer

Found: right now, nearly one in three children in the United Kingdom are facing a future of food-related ill health

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support her Department is providing to families of children with poor mental health.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

The Every Mind Matters website and the National Health Service website both contain helpful advice for parents and carers of a child or young person with poor mental health. This includes signposting to a number of voluntary organisations offering support and information.

Family members of children with poor mental health, who feel they themselves need psychological support, should speak to their general practitioner, or can self-refer to NHS Talking Therapies online. Details are available on the NHS website.

In addition, NHS England is developing a new waiting time measure for children and their families and carers to start receiving community-based mental health care within four weeks of referral. NHS England began publishing this new data in 2023, to improve transparency and drive local accountability.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of her policies on health outcomes for children who live in poverty.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department delivers programmes to support the most vulnerable children and families, and reduce health inequalities. The Government published the Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days, in March 2021. This sets out six action areas for improving support for families during the 1,001 critical days, to ensure every baby in England is given the best possible start in life, regardless of background.

The Government is investing an additional £300 million to improve support for families though the joint Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Education Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. It is implementing many elements of the Best Start for Life Vision, delivering a step change in outcomes for babies, children, and their parents and carers in 75 local authorities in England, including those with high levels of deprivation. The Government has commissioned two in-depth independent evaluations of the programme.

The Healthy Start scheme helps to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children aged under four years old from very low-income households. The latest Healthy Start data was published on 28 March 2024, with an uptake of 66%. Healthy Start now supports approximately 366,000 beneficiaries.

In November 2022, NHS England published Core20PLUS5, an approach to reducing health inequalities for children and young people at both a national and system level. The approach defines a target population cohort, and identifies five clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement, which are asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, oral health, and mental health. Where possible, indicators in the Child and Maternal Health Profile provide a breakdown by the index of multiple deprivation, which is available at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/child-health-profiles

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to tackle health inequality due to childhood poverty.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department delivers programmes to support the most vulnerable children and families, and reduce health inequalities. The Government published the Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days, in March 2021. This sets out six action areas for improving support for families during the 1,001 critical days, to ensure every baby in England is given the best possible start in life, regardless of background.

The Government is investing an additional £300 million to improve support for families though the joint Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Education Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. It is implementing many elements of the Best Start for Life Vision, delivering a step change in outcomes for babies, children, and their parents and carers in 75 local authorities in England, including those with high levels of deprivation. The Government has commissioned two in-depth independent evaluations of the programme.

The Healthy Start scheme helps to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children aged under four years old from very low-income households. The latest Healthy Start data was published on 28 March 2024, with an uptake of 66%. Healthy Start now supports approximately 366,000 beneficiaries.

In November 2022, NHS England published Core20PLUS5, an approach to reducing health inequalities for children and young people at both a national and system level. The approach defines a target population cohort, and identifies five clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement, which are asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, oral health, and mental health. Where possible, indicators in the Child and Maternal Health Profile provide a breakdown by the index of multiple deprivation, which is available at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/child-health-profiles

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the impact of childhood poverty on longitudinal health outcomes.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department delivers programmes to support the most vulnerable children and families, and reduce health inequalities. The Government published the Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days, in March 2021. This sets out six action areas for improving support for families during the 1,001 critical days, to ensure every baby in England is given the best possible start in life, regardless of background.

The Government is investing an additional £300 million to improve support for families though the joint Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Education Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. It is implementing many elements of the Best Start for Life Vision, delivering a step change in outcomes for babies, children, and their parents and carers in 75 local authorities in England, including those with high levels of deprivation. The Government has commissioned two in-depth independent evaluations of the programme.

The Healthy Start scheme helps to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children aged under four years old from very low-income households. The latest Healthy Start data was published on 28 March 2024, with an uptake of 66%. Healthy Start now supports approximately 366,000 beneficiaries.

In November 2022, NHS England published Core20PLUS5, an approach to reducing health inequalities for children and young people at both a national and system level. The approach defines a target population cohort, and identifies five clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement, which are asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, oral health, and mental health. Where possible, indicators in the Child and Maternal Health Profile provide a breakdown by the index of multiple deprivation, which is available at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/child-health-profiles

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how she is targeting health prevention services to support children who live in poverty.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department delivers programmes to support the most vulnerable children and families, and reduce health inequalities. The Government published the Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days, in March 2021. This sets out six action areas for improving support for families during the 1,001 critical days, to ensure every baby in England is given the best possible start in life, regardless of background.

The Government is investing an additional £300 million to improve support for families though the joint Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Education Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. It is implementing many elements of the Best Start for Life Vision, delivering a step change in outcomes for babies, children, and their parents and carers in 75 local authorities in England, including those with high levels of deprivation. The Government has commissioned two in-depth independent evaluations of the programme.

The Healthy Start scheme helps to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children aged under four years old from very low-income households. The latest Healthy Start data was published on 28 March 2024, with an uptake of 66%. Healthy Start now supports approximately 366,000 beneficiaries.

In November 2022, NHS England published Core20PLUS5, an approach to reducing health inequalities for children and young people at both a national and system level. The approach defines a target population cohort, and identifies five clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement, which are asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, oral health, and mental health. Where possible, indicators in the Child and Maternal Health Profile provide a breakdown by the index of multiple deprivation, which is available at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/child-health-profiles

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to improve the mental health and wellbeing of babies and very young children, especially given the evidence surrounding the cumulative impact of poor mental health outcomes that begin early in life.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

In March 2021, the Government published The best start for life: a vision for the 1,001 critical days, a copy of which is attached. This vision sets out six action areas for improving support for families during the 1,001 critical days to ensure every baby in England is given the best possible start in life, regardless of background.

The Government is investing approximately £300 million to improve support for families through the joint Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Education Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme. The programme is implementing many elements of the Best Start for Life Vision and is delivering a step change in outcomes for babies, children and their parents and carers in 75 local authorities in England, including those with high levels of deprivation. This investment includes £100 million for bespoke perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationship support. Many local authorities without funding have also chosen to implement elements of the vision.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on expanding Family Hubs to (a) Bournemouth East constituency and (b) the South West.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The £12 million family hubs transformation fund (TF1) is supporting 13 local authorities, including Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP), with the costs of transforming to a Family Hub model of service delivery and a strong Start for Life offer at its core. Further information about BCP's Family Hubs can be found on their website at: https://www.fid.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/family-information-directory/information/family-hubs/family-hubs-early-help-and-outreach-centres.

As part of the Family Hubs Start for Life programme, the department is also investing £300 million in 75 local authorities. Funding has been targeted to the most deprived local authorities, ensuring families get the support they need. This will fund a network of Family Hubs and specific support within those hubs for parent–infant mental health, infant feeding services, parenting support, home learning environment, and to establish parent-carer panels. In addition, all 75 local authorities will publish their Start for Life offer and the department will be providing funding for trials of innovative workforce models to a smaller number of local authorities.

As part of the Family Hubs Start for Life programme, the department is funding 4 local authorities in the South West, which are Bristol, Cornwall, Plymouth and Torbay. Further information on Family Hubs in Bristol is available at: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/children-and-families/help-for-families/family-hubs. Further information on Family Hubs in Torbay is available at: https://torbayfamilyhub.org.uk/. Further information on Family Hubs in Plymouth is available at: https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/family-hubs. Further information on Family Hubs in Cornwall is available at: https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/childrens-services/family-hubs/.

The department is currently in year 2 of the programme, and all local authorities have opened at least one Family Hub and are focusing on delivering the minimum expectations as set out in the Family Hubs and Start for Life local authority guide by March 2025. This guide is accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/family-hubs-and-start-for-life-programme-local-authority-guide.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will (a) publish average weight to height ratios for children in England and (b) provide advice on any health implications for those who have a ratio significantly larger or smaller than the average.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) collects data on the height and weight status of children aged four to five years old, who are in Reception, and 10 to 11 years old, who are in Year six. The data collected and published by NHS England is expressed as a Body Mass Index (BMI) centile, to estimate child overweight and obesity. Data on average weight to height ratios for children in England is not available. The Department does not plan to publish data on average weight to height ratios, or average waist to height ratios for children in England. Waist measurements are not collected as part of the NCMP.

The clinical guidance from the National Institute of Health and Care Research recommends that a waist to height ratio measurement is considered alongside a child’s BMI centile in individual clinical assessments, to give a practical estimate of central adiposity. If a child falls into an unhealthy weight category, a waist to height ratio will give additional health information in clinical settings. This includes helping to assess and predict individual health risks such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, or cardiovascular disease, as the location of where children carry weight on their bodies has an influence on their health.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of the health of children's teeth nationally in England.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

In England, local authorities have the statutory function of assessing the oral health needs of their local populations. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, within the Department, co-ordinates the English National Dental Epidemiology Programme. This programme consists of annual surveys that assess the local oral health needs of specific population groups.

Year six schoolchildren were surveyed in 2023, and 16% of them had experienced tooth decay. Among the 16% of children with experience of decay, each child had on average two affected teeth. Five-year-old schoolchildren were surveyed in 2022 and 24% had experienced tooth decay. Among the 24% of children with experience of decay, each child had on average four affected teeth. Three-year-old children were surveyed in 2020 and 11% had experienced tooth decay. Among the 11% of children with experience of decay, each had on average three affected teeth.

Our plan to recover and reform NHS Dentistry sets out a new emphasis on prevention and good oral health in children. This includes supporting nurseries and early years settings to incorporate good oral hygiene into daily routines and providing advice to expectant parents on how to protect their baby’s teeth.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the budget is for the Smile for Life programme, and if she will publish a breakdown of costs.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

To improve prevention for our youngest children, we will roll out support education targeting one to three year olds in the new Smile for Life programme. We will work closely with local areas to ensure our national advice and educational materials are tailored appropriately for nurseries and other early years settings.

The Dentistry Recovery Plan is fully funded with £200 million, and will deliver new initiatives to address the challenges facing National Health Service dentistry, including an additional 2.5 million appointments.

Overall NHS spending totals will be set at budget in the usual way. We are committed to protecting funding for dentistry purposes and will ringfence dental funding in 2024/25. We will issue guidance to integrated care boards shortly, through NHS England’s 2024/25 revenue finance and contracting guidance.

Found: health ● Maternity services ● Gender identity services ● Cosmetic regulation ● DHSC litigation ● Mental health