Child Health Survellience – Analysis of the Existing Services

Abstract

The Child Health Surveillance (CHS) is the core of a healthy childhood programme for the children living in the United Kingdom. The change of the GP contract in 2004 may have significant implications on the CHS services. The GPs will no longer be required to provide a CHS service under their contract requirements and there is a chance that the increase in workload will have to be borne by the HVs and other community practitioners. This is likely to leave gaps in the service provided and may have an indirect effect on children from the deprived social class who are largely dependent on the services provided by the CHS. A questionnaire survey was thus organised in the early years after the implementation of the GP 2004 contract to understand the level of success of the CHS services, deficiencies that may have arose and also how the HVs and GPs are working with each other in an era of changed service contract. The main findings from the study was encouraging that 91% of the GPs have opted to continue providing the CHS services, and >85% of the surveyed staff group were having dedicated baby clinics once a week. The GPs were mainly doing the newborn checks and the 6 weeks check whereas the other aspects of CHS were largely done by the HVs along with advice on health promotion. Few discrepancies were highlighted from the study, these were taken up and adequately addressed by the Barnsley PCT and the localities managers. We hope this study reflects on the CHS service requirements in light of the new GP contract and will help in delivering service in other PCTs, although regional differences and needs will vary and consideration for that is very important.