The College welcomes this opportunity to feed into the 10 year plan, especially following the Darzi Review, which laid bare the challenges for child health services and the state of children's health and wellbeing. RCPCH is calling for an NHS that works better for children and young people.
This includes prioritising children’s health in national plans, ensuring fair funding for children and young people, making devolution to Integrated Care Systems work better for children and supporting a sustainable child health workforce.
In preparation for their response, the RCPCH &Us team engaged over 2,000 children and young people across England from diverse backgrounds, replicating elements of the Change NHS Portal. In their responses, young people have advocated for a child rights-based approach in the NHS 10 Year Plan process and in health services. Children and young people prioritised being involved in decision-making, having child and youth friendly health services and equal access to health services.
RCPCH Vice-President for Policy, Dr Mike McKean, said:
While we were pleased to see the challenges of children and young people acknowledged in the Darzi Review, we highlight in our organisational responses how there needs to be further action to prioritise children. This is a call for equity: it is unacceptable that children's health services have been deprioritised and underfunded compared to adult care.
I would like to remind all members that they can still engage with to advocate for child health. The voice and input of the child health workforce is imperative if we are to build an NHS fit for the future.
RCPCH &Us young people said:
We need to make sure that children and young people are involved and listened to. We need to be remembered in planning for the future, and to have our rights to influence decisions that affect us understood and supported. The NHS is amazing in many ways and we want to get involved with how it can develop into the future. We are 20% of the population and need to be remembered.
Resources for members
We have developed a range of resources, on our dedicated NHS 10 Year plan web pages, which we hope will encourage anyone working or with an interest in child health to make the case and ensure children and young people aren’t forgotten on .
You can download our organisational responses below or see the summaries.