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The school holidays are looming.
Grannies and aunties will step up as unpaid carers.
Holiday prices will mysteriously double.
Memories will be made and pictures fill smartphones... buckets and spades, paddling pools, ice creams, day trips, late nights and the familiar cry from the back seat…
'…are we nearly there?'
Family souvenirs of happy times with the next generation, loved and cared for, readying itself to step into an uncertain future, but…
…not all children.
For some, the school gates closing does not mean six weeks of freedom. It means...
... the loss of a reliable meal, a familiar routine, a safe place and trusted adults.
Some will spend the summer cooped-up in cramped rooms and rotten housing.
Some will breathe-in what our cars and lorries pump-out.
Some will only only eat whatever the family budget will stretch to.
Some will have nowhere safe to play.
Some will become more anxious, more isolated
Some will never notice their health and futures silently eroded.
They’ll probably not feature in the holiday photographs… but they are in the numbers.
Numbers, in a newly published report The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health says Britain is raising one of the unhealthiest generations in decades.
It's a devastating read. Modern Britain going to the dogs... and taking the kids with it...
... Unicef ranks the UK 21st out of 36 for overall child wellbeing, 27th for mental health and joint second from bottom for teenage life satisfaction.
In their report the RCPCH looked at twelve measures of children’s health and found that, across the board, progress has either stalled or gone backwards.
'Are we nearly there'...
No!
We're nowhere near where we should be...
- In England, ~1 in 5 children haven’t received both doses of the MMR vaccine by the age of five.
- More than one in three children leave primary school overweight or obese.
- One in five, aged between eight and sixteen, has a probable mental health disorder.
- Children in the poorest areas are four times more likely to die from asthma.
- Infant mortality in the most deprived communities is more than double the rate in the wealthiest.
These numbers deserve to be read again. Our kids, our country, our lifetime, our responsibility, their future.
This isn’t one problem.
It is a; vaccination, obesity, mental health, asthma, poverty, housing, food, education and inequality…problem…
…all converging, yet we file all this stuff separately…
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Vaccination belongs to the NHS.
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School meals belong to education.
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Housing belongs to councils.
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Air quality belongs to local government.
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Poverty belongs to the Treasury.
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Mental health belongs to everyone and, consequently…
…appears to belong to no one.
Children don’t live in departmental silos. They live in a world where their health is the product of everything around them.
Where they live.
What they eat.
What they breathe.
What their parents can afford.
Whether there is a health visitor, school nurse, dentist, GP or mental-health service available when they need one.
HMG's own ten-year plan says prevention starts with children and young people. Quite right, because these are not simply statistics about childhood.
They are a forecast.
Today’s overweight eleven-year-old may become tomorrow’s patient with diabetes, heart disease and painful joints.
Today’s anxious teenager may become tomorrow’s adult needing mental-health support.
Today’s poorly controlled asthma becomes tonight’s emergency admission.
The future NHS waiting list is already sitting in today’s classrooms.
We spend fortunes treating illness after it has arrived and comparatively little stopping it from setting off.
It’s the economics of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff… whilst arguing over who should pay for the fence at the top.
The paediatricians want investment, better data, clearer targets and a Children’s Health Investment Standard to protect spending on early-years services.
‘Are we nearly there?’
No… because…
A target does not vaccinate a child. A dashboard does not carry out an asthma review. A report does not restore health visitors, improve housing or put mental-health support into schools.
We will never be 'nearly there' until somebody owns the kids' journey into the future.
By the way... There are approximately 5,586 health visitors in the NHS, their numbers have fallen by over 40% since 2015...
... we are nowhere 'nearly there' replacing them.
Who is personally accountable for narrowing the gap between children born a few miles, but a lifetime of opportunity, apart?
Dunno.
As the school holidays begin, our phones will fill with pictures of the children we love. Take a good look.
They are not only our grandchildren, nieces, nephews, sons and daughters.
They are the future workforce, the future taxpayers and the future patients who will depend on the NHS.
If the move from sickness to prevention does not start with them… we will never, ever be…
... ‘nearly there’.
-oOo-
Have the best weekend you can.
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