GET-A-HEAD: Charity claims baby health care is still a post code lottery despite 'Family Hub' roll out

A charity claims the health care and support offered to families and their babies in England remains a post code lottery, despite the launch of the government's Family Hubs.

The new facilities replace children's centres as the 'one-stop shop' for services aimed at expectant mums and new families, and will support children aged 0-19, or up to 25 for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

75 local authority areas in England have been chosen to host the new Family Hubs, but just two of those areas are in Lancashire; Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen. The centres will give parents advice on how to take care of their child and make sure they are safe and healthy – providing services including parenting and breastfeeding support.

Harry's Hydrocephalus Awareness Trust (Harry's HAT), which supports children diagnosed with hydrocephalus, and their families, says the hubs must be rolled out everywhere to ensure no child with a potentially life threatening condition slips through the net.

Caroline Coates is Harry's HAT CEO: "Every year about 1 in every 770 babies will develop hydrocephalus. The families we work with tell us they often struggle to access health visitors due to capacity issues within the service. Family Hubs would be one way to ensure more contact between families and health care professionals, and hence more opportunities to spot the signs and symptoms of hydrocephalus.

"Whilst the idea of Family Hubs has the potential to be effective; there simply needs to be more of these centres to ensure parity of access. The alternative is that children with potentially life threatening conditions, like hydrocephalus, may continue to slip through the net with symptoms going undiagnosed until it's too late."

Andrea Leadsom MP, the Government's Early Years advisor, responded to the challenge during a visit to Blackpool's family hub on Tuesday: "I want to see every baby get the best start to life. Obviously it's still early days in the roll out of the family hubs and the best start for life programme and I want to see a huge improvement. We're just starting out and we're not nearly where I want us to get to.

"My ambition is to see this funded forever so at the next spending review, which is mid-2025, I will be looking for funding from Government for the other 78 local authority areas that didn't get additional funding this time round, plus the ongoing funding for those that did."

We’re working alongside Harry's Hydrocephalus Awareness Trust on the GET-A-HEAD campaign, which is calling for an improved set of national guidelines that would standardise health care for all babies across England.

The GET-A-HEAD campaign was originally launched to raise awareness of the importance of head circumference measurements in a child's first year, and to educate parents on why they're taken. A rapidly growing head, or a head that is disproportionately large compared with the rest of the baby's body can be an indicator of a health issue that requires further investigation, such as hydrocephalus.

This arm of the GET-A-HEAD campaign is now going further with its ambition to revolutionise health care for babies, by asking for improvements in three areas.

CONTACT:

A minimum number of face to face contacts with health professionals in the first year of a child's life. This has recently been adopted in Scotland, where health visiting teams are now committed to 8 visits with a family in the first 12 months.

COMMUNICATION:

Midwives, GPs, Health Visitors etc to briefly explain why they perform each one of their checks. For example - does the parent know why head circumference measurement is important and do they know when to expect this measurement to be taken again?

CONCERN:

A review of the current NICE guidelines which discuss when and how a health professional should refer a child with concerning symptoms to a specialist team.

The aim of the guidelines is that no matter where you live, you can expect the same standard and intervals of care across England.