This document discusses issues affecting children and young people's health in the UK from a public health perspective. It highlights that smoking during pregnancy, poor mental health, and childhood obesity are significant problems that contribute to health inequalities. The national context section outlines commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan to improve services for children and young people, including integrating care and expanding mental health support. In concluding, the document states that the UK is performing poorly compared to other European countries in areas like obesity rates, long-term conditions among youth, and adolescent birth rates. It emphasizes the need to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities for children and young people.

1. Children and Young People
NHS Youth Forum
Angela Horsley – NHS Improvement
Kath Evans – NHS England
Wendy Nicholson – Public Health England

2. Giving every child the best start in life: A public health
approach. Early Years Children's Health, Transition to
Transformation 7th February 2017
Reducing inequality - starting early
Smoking is the main modifiable risk factor in
pregnancy
Geographical variation: 2% - 26.6% SATOD
FNP RCT: 56% smoking in late pregnancy
Pregnancies in areas of highest social deprivation
50% more likely to end in stillbirth or neonatal death
Up to 20% of women develop a
mental health problem during
pregnancy or within a year of giving
birth – this can have significant and
long-term consequences
3 times as likely to have
poor mental health
9 Health visiting and school nursing: A vital resource for tackling vulnerabilities and closing the inequalities gap for children, young people and families

3. Mental health and wellbeing

4. Improving Oral Health
Public health issue and ‘sentinel marker’

5. Childhood obesity

6. National Context – NHS Long Term Plan:
CYP service redesign and integration models
• Children and young people account for 25% of emergency department
attendances and are the most likely age group to attend A&E unnecessarily.
Many attendances could be managed in primary care or community settings.
• From 2019/20 clinical networks will be rolled out to ensure we improve the
quality of care for children with long-term conditions such as asthma, epilepsy
and diabetes.
• Paediatric critical care and surgical services will evolve to meet the changing
needs of patients, ensuring that children and young people are able to access
high quality services as close to home as possible.
• Selectively moving to a 0-25 year’s service will improve children’s experience
of care, outcomes and continuity of care.

7. National Context – Long Term Plan
• Specific actions outlined for maternity, neonatal care, cancer, mental
health, learning disabilities, autism and tackling obesity
• Significant additional investment in mental health services for CYP
a) Community based services
b) Eating disorder services
c) Support in schools and colleges
d) Support for those experiencing a crisis – reduce pressure on A&E/
Paediatric wards
Development of a Children and Young People’s Transformation Programme to
oversee the delivery of CYP commitments in the Plan.

8. Sound the alarm – We must improve!
• The UK is performing least well in the following areas.
We have:
• the highest rates of obesity for 15- to 19-year-olds among 14 European
comparator countries
• the highest inequalities in obesity prevalence between the richest and
poorest, apart from Finland, in countries where data are available
• the highest rate of young people aged 16–24 living with a longstanding
condition among 14 European comparator countries apart from Finland
and Sweden
• low rates of engagement in exercise by 11-year-olds in England and Wales

9. • the highest asthma death rate for those aged 10–24 among all 19
countries apart from Australia, New Zealand and the United States
(US)
• the highest rate of adolescent girls aged 15–19 giving birth among all
19 countries apart from New Zealand and the US
• a high percentage of young people aged 15-19 not in education,
employment or training (NEET)
• high rates of severe material deprivation among 15- to 24-year-olds
• a high burden-of-disease rate for all causes, and in particular for type
1 diabetes.

11. We Can Talk co-produced with hospital staff, young people and mental health experts, an education
framework and one-day training designed to support sustainable changes in practice, hospital culture, and
relationships between acute hospitals and mental health services to improve patient experience, reduce risk
and improve outcomes for children, young people and their parents / carers.
More than one thousand acute hospital staff across nineteen hospital sites have attended the one day We Can
Talk training with 99% reporting it would make a difference to the way they do their job. The Care Quality
Commission (CQC) has recognised We Can Talk an area of outstanding practice and “the only programme of
its kind in the NHS”.
Too many children and young people report negative experiences of
presenting to hospital due to their mental health.
Hospital staff report a lack of confidence and competency in caring for children with mental
health needs.
www.wecantalk.online / @WeCanTalkCYPMH #WeCanTalk