Final Report > Chapter 29: The Care of Children > Leadership of children's healthcare services > A focus on healthcare

A focus on healthcare

43 As we have made clear, the issues involved in improving the quality of children's healthcare services warrant particular and urgent attention. We see real value in including healthcare services within the remit of broader-based initiatives, such as that of the office of a Children's Commissioner, designed to promote the rights of children and to improve the ways in which the needs of children are properly met. Indeed, there could be positive advantage in terms of the better integration of a whole range of services intended for children. There is, however, a danger that the specific improvements needed in the field of healthcare could easily be swamped by other needs in other areas. For this reason it is important to examine another approach to raising the priority of children's healthcare services: the development of institutional mechanisms which are designed for this, and only this, task.

44 We take as a starting point, by way of analogy, the approach which has been adopted to improve health services for older people. There is now within the NHS a National Director for Services for Older People whose role it is to lead a programme of change and reform in four areas earmarked for improvement: assuring standards of care, extending access to services, promoting independence in old age, and ensuring fairness in funding. We are impressed by this approach. [17] A parallel initiative for children's healthcare services in the form of a National Director for Children's Healthcare Services would be of real and lasting benefit, always provided that it was combined with a strong commitment by government at ministerial level and a strong national framework for children's healthcare services, both of which we have referred to earlier.

Footnotes

[17] One of the Panel would go further and also recommend the appointment of a Children's Commissioner, as discussed earlier