Children’s Health

Sarah Hall Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)]

If we want to raise a generation of healthy, thriving children, we must stop treating children’s health as an afterthought. This week, I launched a new survey asking constituents to feed into my work, and I thank everyone who has responded. The responses have helped to shape my contribution to this debate today, along with my work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on inclusion and nurture in education.

The focus of the survey was children, their education and wellbeing. I heard from parents, carers and guardians about their child’s experiences in schools and in accessing health services; about their child’s mental health, and the anxiety and stress caused by an outdated education system; and about barriers to accessing education because of their child’s neurodiversity or disabilities. Families tell me that there are long waiting lists for CAMHS, and gaps in speech and language therapy and school-based special educational needs co-ordinator support. They tell me about narrow criteria that are limiting health and care support, and how those criteria do not reflect their child’s unique needs, resulting in families feeling lost in the system.

The NHS was founded on the promise that care would be there when we need it, no matter our income or postcode, but for too many children and families, that promise is fraying. Infant mortality remains stubbornly high. Conditions such as asthma, obesity and dental decay are sending more children into hospital, and mental health needs are rising, with longer waiting lists for specialist services. Sadly, health inequalities remain stubbornly persistent and are undeniably linked to the unacceptable levels of child poverty and deprivation.

Children’s health outcomes have been allowed to decline for too long. We know that the children’s health workforce is working incredibly hard, but over the last 14 years it has been underfunded and undervalued. Children and young people are waiting significantly longer than adults for access to health services, with 21.5% waiting for more than 52 weeks, compared with 1.3% of adults. Those numbers represent a gap in provision. In my own integrated health board area of Cheshire and Merseyside, more than 11,000 children are waiting for the care they need. Some 44% of children are waiting between 18 and 52 weeks, and 25% of children have been waiting more than 52 weeks for treatment.

The Royal College has given Ministers a road map, including shifting care closer to home to transform children’s community services, introducing a dedicated waiting times target for children’s services and establishing a children’s health investment standard. However, we cannot talk about children’s health in isolation from poverty. We know that poverty increases the risk of poor mental and physical health, missed developmental milestones and poorer outcomes in school. Without real investment in family incomes, housing and food security, we are simply papering over the cracks.

If we are serious about giving every child a fair start, tackling poverty must be at the front and centre. That is why I was pleased to hear that Warrington will benefit from the Government’s new plans to fund the new family hub model in our town. It is one thing to fund services, but it is another to ensure that they truly reach and uplift the children who need them the most.