0-5 Public Health Nursing Services

Giving every child the best start in life is crucial to reducing health inequalities across the life course. The foundations for virtually every aspect of human development - physical, intellectual and emotional - are set in place during pregnancy and in early childhood. All families with a child aged 0-5 years and all pregnant women currently resident in the local authority area must be offered the Healthy Child Programme via 5 mandated universal checks and assessments. The Healthy Child Programme promotes child development and aims to improve child health outcomes Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in England. Smoking in pregnancy is a major contributor to higher infant mortality in the routine and manual socio-economic group. Doncaster has chosen to incorporate smoking cessation services for pregnant and post natal women into the 0-5 Healthy Child pathway. This integrated model sees specialist stop smoking advisors sitting alongside and working with Health Visiting teams. The contract for both the Health Visiting service and Smoking in Pregnacy service will go out to open tender in June 2017. Aim: To ensure that all children and young people receive the full service offer (Healthy Child Programme 0-5), including universal access and early identification of additional and/or complex needs, with timely access to targeted and or specialist services, to secure local services that enable health visiting team to contribute to improved local outcomes and reduce health inequalities for children and young people