Shedding light on the recent school nursing announcements

Abstract

The Department of Health recently issued a statement saying that the school nursing service will play a bigger and more important role in improving the health of children and young people as part of new plans announced by the Children’s Health Minister, Dan Poulter. Would you be able to elaborate on what was meant by a ‘strengthened’ and ‘better tailored’ service? We want to ensure school nurses are supported to deliver the Healthy Child Programme (5–19) in their local areas. This will mean ensuring the population needs of school-aged children are recognised and fed into the new commissioning arrangements. School health services need to be accessible to children and young people—this will require strong leadership and strengthened delivery, which measures impact and offers more tailored support to those who need it most. School nurses cannot deliver the whole healthy child programme in isolation and this will require collaboration with partners and effective commissioning underpinned by a robust Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.