On BBC 4 this morning but nowhere on BBC Scotland, this:
1 in 4 children in England was NOT seeing a health visitor by the time they turned one…..Alison Morton is the Chief Executive of the Institute of Health Visiting…..40% cut in workforce [in England]….Is it particularly an England problem in that Scotland provides 11 health visits and Wales 9?…. knock on consequences into other services…soaring rates of A&E attendances. The younger ones are the highest users of A&E. The rate has increased by 42% in the last 10 years in England, whereas in Scotland, they don’t have this problem because they have intensive visiting by health visitors who support families in the heart of communities…..some families never see a health visitor while in Scotland, they’ll see them 11 times. It makes an enormous difference. So Scotland has much better uptake of immunisation, better identification of children with complex health conditions and disabilities, better breast feeding rates and that’s going up. In England, all of our metrics are going in the wrong direction.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001w142 at 55min
Who was Health Secretary in Scotland when this good news was being put in place?
Oh yeh, that woman above, the one the Scottish media are comparing to Richard Nixon.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
On health I saw this but don’t know how to post it very interesting though.
@Channel4NewsHow has England’s NHS fared under Conservative governments?
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Thanks
No comparative data?
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No indication that the good news story about Scotland had reached Pacific Quay , not a cheep by Scottish broadcasters.
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..but Ferries , Michael Matheson’s Ipad , the Scottish Rain , the Locusts , …
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Scotlands good news stories don’t help TheDameSarwar or the rest of their Tory Unionist pals!!!
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Number of health visits to mums with new babies, uptake of childhood immunisation, identification of children with complex health conditions and disabilities, breast feeding rates – if any one of these metrics was showing a decline in Scotland at present, however small and even if only in comparison to ‘anomalous’ data during the pandemic, BBC Scotland and/or The Herald’s health correspondent would be in full gaslighting mode with ‘scandalised’ headlines. And they would disregard any comparison of Scotland’s performance with another part of the UK. Positives expressed by a health expert – someone with no reason to promote Scotland for political reasons - are of no interest to the news media here as they seek to damage the electoral prospects of Scotland’s governing party.
The Chief Executive of the Institute of Health Visiting featured on the R4’s Today programme as a follow up to coverage the previous day of a new report by the Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) entitled: ‘Prioritising early childhood to promote the NATION’S health, wellbeing and prosperity’. (with my emphasis)
In setting out various recommendations, the report states: ‘We recommend that in all UK NATIONS, Government, the NHS and local authorities, work together to implement proven interventions and policies to improve child health and wellbeing at scale and to a high quality.’
Firstly, to make a point that is ‘trivial’ in the context of the report’s important subject matter, why do clever people associated with UK institutions time after time after time confuse and conflate singular and plural nouns?
There are a number of features of this report’s presentation that ‘irritate’ : this has only been reinforced by the remarks made by the head of the Institute of Health Visiting on the radio.
The report states that its scope is UK-wide. Its recommendations are directed UK wide. It acknowledges the need for actions – the same actions – by government and public bodies within each of the four nations of the UK. It FAILS to acknowledges the existence and significance of four health systems. Whilst acknowledging that issues wider that health service provision influence childhood health and well-being, it FAILS to identify where the levers of power to act on these wider matters reside in the UK.
In its analysis of statistics, the AMS frequently only reports on England: it frequently fails to draw direct comparisons with statistics for NI, Scotland and Wales whilst still drawing conclusions and making recommendations based on its England-only data for the WHOLE UK. In some cases, it makes reference to a statistic with no reference to an individual nation and thus, arguably, implying it’s a UK statistic. However, examining the source of the evidence in the report’s list of references reveals the scope of the source to be limited to England.
Sloppy use of terminology or what? With two eminent professors from the University of Glasgow on the Steering Group for the Academy’s study one might have hoped for better. One might have hoped for some reference to the positive impact – or otherwise – of one or more of the following: (i) the Scottish Baby Box scheme; (ii) the Scottish Child Payment; (iii) the relatively high childhood vaccination rates in Scotland; (iv) the findings of the recently published evaluation of the Scottish Government’s ‘Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board and the Infant Mental Health Implementation and Advisory Group’ which concluded in March 2023; (v) the success or otherwise of the Scottish Government’s ‘Universal Health Visiting Pathway’ which sets out the minimum core home visiting programme offered to all families by Health Visitors. The remarks on radio by the Chief Executive of the Institute of Health Visiting reaffirms the significance of some of the above.
There is a host of Scottish Government interventions on Maternal and Child Health of relevance to the subject of the Academy’s report – see https://www.gov.scot/policies/maternal-and-child-health/.
From the AMS report, it’s as if nothing of note is being done in Scotland or nothing different from elsewhere in the UK. With four health systems within one nation-state, one might expect that those (presumably) interested in and committed to evidence-based design of health and related interventions would take the opportunity to evaluate the outcomes and impact on children’s health and wellbeing of different policy inputs. After all, there is huge learning to be gained for every part of the UK if distinctive interventions in one of the four UK nations do – or are shown not to – lead to better outcomes.
Overly biasing the analysis with England-only data and then drawing the same conclusions and making the same recommendations for the whole of the UK based on partial evidence seems less than a robust approach.
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