Health of children under five years is not improving

Despite a whole host of government programmes, children under the age of five years are not seeing a significant improvement in their health, particularly in England’s disadvantaged areas.

Children growing up in deprived areas are more likely to have bad teeth and be physically unfit, despite nearly £11billion being pumped into programmes aiming to improve their health and £7.2billion into Sure Start.

The findings from a new study by the Audit Commission, Giving Children a Healthy Start, showed that the infant mortality rate has fallen since 1999, but the rich poor divide still affects the health and life expectancy of young children as they grow.

Steve Bundred, Chief Executive of the Audit Commission, said: “It’s encouraging to see some improvement in the health of babies and young children, but the under-fives rarely seem a priority locally. Overall, the findings are disappointing. Children need a healthier start in life and policies are not delivering commensurate improvement and value for money.”

Though health organisations know which issues are affecting children in this age group, accessing services appears not to work best for those who need it the most.

Getting advice through health visitors is usually the first port of call for parents with pre-schoolers, but this is becoming is harder due to a ten per cent drop in the numbers now working in England.

Parents who would benefit most from using Sure Start children’s centres are not doing so either because they are not really aware of them or feel staff can be ‘judgemental’ towards their needs.

The fall out from the retracted research linking MMR with autism and bowl disease has also been acknowledged as children’s health is threatened by these illnesses with the continuing declines in the immunisation rate.