New alliance aims to combat children’s nursing shortages
Some 25 national organisations including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have formed an alliance to fight for better investment and support for England’s children’s health workforce.
The Child Health Workforce Alliance, launched this month, aims to ensure that the ‘currently underfunded and overlooked’ children’s health workforce receives appropriate ‘attention and strategic focus’ when it comes to policymaking.
It warned of a ‘growing crisis’ across children’s health services and urged the government to prioritise children’s health and wellbeing as part of its upcoming NHS workforce plan – including by investing in school nursing and child health specialists.
As part of its launch, the alliance has published a policy briefing setting out major workforce challenges, including staff burnout, gaps in training and making the case for more cross-sector working to deliver the government’s goal of raising ‘the healthiest generation of children ever’.
Who is in the alliance?
The alliance has representatives from organisations across health, social care and education and includes the RCN and School and Public Health Nurses Association (SAPHNA).
Other members include the Council for Disabled Children (CDC), the National Children’s Bureau and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH).
It was formed as a working group within the Children and Young People’s Health Policy Influencing Group (HPIG), with the main aim of strengthening commitments to the children’s health workforce in the upcoming workforce plan.
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The refreshed workforce plan, first announced last November, is expected to have a significant public health focus and was due to be published this summer.
Workforce planning and development
Effective children’s health services can only be achieved through additional specialist recruitment and targeted workforce investment, according to the alliance in its new report.
The group has called on the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England (NHSE) to ‘develop a robust set of measures’ and undertake modelling to better understand how the workforce needs to change to meet patient needs.
Workforce planning must include ‘systematic engagement’ with professionals working with children and young people, it said.
The report also detailed the need for an ‘explicit focus’ on early intervention and health promotion, with ‘consistency’ in specialist public health support across the primary, community and secondary care workforce.
The alliance has also called on the DHSC and the Department for Education (DfE) to strengthen cross-departmental collaboration to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children remains a core government priority.
This includes establishing a fully integrated workforce across all settings where children receive care – from early years services like Best Start Family Hubs to schools, GP practices, and children’s social care.
The government’s upcoming workforce plan must also consider the impact of the scrapping of NHSE and 50% reduction in integrated care board (ICB) capacity, which has caused significant anxiety across health and social care, the alliance added.
‘The Long-Term Workforce Plan must take into account these wider changes and how resources would be distributed to deliver this to a high quality,’ the report stated.
The quality of data on babies, children and young people’s health must also be improved, the report said.
‘As well, efforts must be made to review what kind of data is reflected in the NHS dataset, to develop transparency on what services and practitioners are included or being left out,’ the report noted.
Carli Whittaker, the RCN’s head of nursing, said nurses working in the community were ‘critical’ to ensuring children and young people had a strong start in life.
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‘But as this report shows, sustained underfunding means there simply aren’t enough staff to meet demand. This has to change,’ Ms Whittaker said.
‘When children and young people are left without access to care, it not only causes harm but also stores up more problems for the future,’ she added.
‘The upcoming workforce plan must set out how it intends to rebuild these vital nursing roles, with government providing the necessary funding to make it a reality,’ she said.
‘The vision to move from illness to prevention and from hospital to community will only succeed if children and young people get the care they deserve.’
Separately, the alliance has written to the health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, and the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to ask them to ‘engage meaningfully’ on the development of the new NHS workforce plan so that it prioritises children’s health and wellbeing.
At the start of this year, the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) reported that two-thirds of health visitors in England warned workforce shortages were hampering their ability to support families in need.
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A DHSC spokesperson said: ‘This government will make sure families have the support they need to give their babies and children the best start in life.
‘The child health workforce are central to this and their contact with parents, carers and children helps to identify development and safeguarding needs early.
‘The 10 Year Workforce Plan will also make sure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for all patients, including children, when they need it.’
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