Kevin's Speech at the Royal Society's Paediatric's Conference

I’m very pleased to be here this morning in my new capacity as under-secretary for children, young people and families.

This is a very appropriate venue.

You may know that the Royal Society grew out of informal societies, which the scientist Robert Boyle referred to as the ‘invisible college’ – a network for intellectuals who could share ideas. King Charles II approved of the meetings, and so the Royal Society was founded.

It was to be an “empire of learning”, - we did consider that as a possible name for the new Department, but in the end thought we’d stick with the more prosaic DCSF.

But that sharing of knowledge and expertise across professional divisions that led to this institution lies at the heart of transforming our public services today, and is what I want to talk to you about this morning: professionals, ministers, local government, coming together to provide the best possible services for children, young people, and families.

All of us involved with children and young people, healthcare professionals, teachers, social workers, and yes, even politicians are basically motivated by a desire to change things for the better, and in particular for children.  We are all in the same boat, we all want to go in the same direction, but we need to be better at rowing at the same rhythm.

So, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the work you do every day, to improve the lives of children, young people and families and to protect children from harm, and to thank you also for coming together today to discuss how to carry on that work.

Because looking to the future, this is an exciting time.

And good health, mental and physical, is absolutely essential to raising educational outcomes.

Last year my colleague, Beverley Hughes signalled the government’s intention to emphasise the importance of people working to safeguard the vulnerable. I want to reiterate that, and thank doctors, nurses, and all clinical professionals working with children, who help to safeguard them. Your importance cannot be emphasised strongly enough.

As you all know the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services sets out a 10 year strategy to promote communication, strong leadership, and the highest possible standards across integrated services for children and families.

Many local authorities and Primary Care Trusts have started to implement these, and within each locality some parts are working well. Of course, each locality is working to its own local priorities, but there has been a noticeable national improvement in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Since the ‘Together We Stand’ review in 1996 reported that these services were ‘essentially unplanned’, ‘patchy’, and ‘variable in quality and composition’, there has been real improvement.

The National Service Framework set a new strategic direction for timely, integrated, and high quality multidisciplinary mental health services to  support young people from birth to 18.

With increases in funding since 1999, and measures introduced to test delivery, we have seen real improvements. The number of children being seen is up, and waiting times are down.

NSF standards in action can be seen through Sure Start Children’s Centres and extended schools. 1,550 are already bringing together childcare, health and careers services, and parental support under one roof; in an environment that is familiar and local. And, there are over 8,000 extended schools providing convenient access to health and other children’s services.

Another example is providing more co-ordinated child and family-centred services, for children and young people who are disabled or who have complex health needs.  They need to receive high quality child and family-centred services, based on their assessed needs, which enable them and their families to have a better quality of life.

And, over 90% of PCTs are meeting targets for a 24/7 CAMHS emergency service and CAMHS for 16-17 year olds, and 88% are meeting the target to deliver CAMHS services to disabled children.

One reason we have brought services together in this way is to focus on the most vulnerable in our society. Children and young people today are safer in many ways than previous generations. Accident rates are down, and many childhood diseases can now be prevented or cured.

But children and families today also face new challenges and risks which government and professionals need to respond to. Our Staying Safe consultation – through which we are seeking the views of parents, young people, and all who work with them – closes tomorrow.

We will be looking very carefully at the responses, to determine the way forward in the coming months. Paediatricians will be absolutely central to delivering that work.

So there has been a tremendous amount of progress, which is made possible by you – the professionals working hard to improve the support given to children and their families within the constraints of resources and conflicting priorities.

But there is still much more to be done.

We need to continue to ensure that local authorities are working with PCTs as early as possible in planning services for children, young people and families, and aim for all schools to provide extended services, and 3,500 children’s centres – one in every community – by 2010.

We need to continue to raise our efforts in CAMHS, particularly when it comes to supporting children with more complex needs. In 2005, less than a quarter of local authorities reported that they had fully operational partnership working to help children with the most challenging needs.

And we need to raise our game in schools, with a full time equivalent nurse working year round in every secondary school and its cluster of primary schools by 2010. We are making progress. But there are still only a third in place so far. We need to do better.

This is why we have recently announced that we will invest an additional £60 million (over three years) in supporting schools to work with mental health practitioners and others to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils.  In particular, getting mental health experts working with teachers on the school site to identify problems and provide children and young people with support.

But we need to remember that we’re only three years in to a ten year strategy. Now, we have to look to how we will build on progress – and the NSF standards – for the future.

So where do we go from here?

The new Government Public Service Agreements announced earlier this month demonstrate a new energy and commitment to children’s services.

Building on the reforms and successes of the last decade, those new agreements aim to improve the wellbeing and health of children and young people, achieve world class standards in education, close the achievement gap between disadvantaged children and the rest, help children to achieve their full potential, and keep them on the path to success.  In other words, the central aims of every child matters are woven into the Government’s spending and action plans. 

These aims are not just a symbol of health and education working together – the government’s way of paying lip-service to joined up working. They are a binding agreement across government. 

They force us to talk to each other across Whitehall. And they force us all to take a share in the accountability.

My secretary of State, Ed Balls is committed to that, and I know that my colleagues at the Department of Health are committed to that too.

The aim of the PSAs is to enable greater flexibility at local level, so that local authorities can focus on the priorities specific to their local community.

But government has to lead by example. A strong commitment to children’s services from the top will translate to prioritisation at local level. The link between health, education, and all aspects of children’s services must be mirrored at every level – from government ministers to local authority officials, to practitioners – if we are to see real results.

We are backing services for disabled children, for example, with 340 million pounds of funding from April next year. My colleague Andrew Adonis and Health minister Ivan Lewis are jointly overseeing implementation with our partners, with parents and with disabled young people themselves.

So, the new PSA targets help to drive the standards set out in the National Service Framework.

I want to briefly outline some practical ways in which we can put these standards into practice – through prevention, intervention, and leadership and planning.

Firstly, we need to promote good health from as early on as possible, to prevent problems in later life. Just in economic terms, preventable illnesses caused by unhealthy lifestyle choices are costing the UK £187 billion per year.

Education has an enormous role to play in helping people take responsibility for their own health.

But sadly, giving people the information is not enough.

That’s where intervention comes in. So that when children and families experience problems there are efficient, reliable services on hand. Services that are both convenient, and cater to children and families’ real needs.

That means quality treatments, and professional services.

It also requires a highly qualified, dedicated workforce, with good leadership, which brings me to the next point.

Local authorities must set the direction through joint commissioning, joint planning, and joint commitment to follow through. As I said before, they must engage PCTs from the outset when planning services.

But, most importantly, they need to make sure that the child’s needs and experience of the system are at the heart of all planning.

That means listening to what young people and parents say they need, involve them as services are designed, and continuously re-evaluate to make sure that their needs are still being met.

In September, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State launched a national debate – Time To Talk – about how we can improve children’s services over the next ten years. 

We want to tap directly into the experience and expertise of children, young people, parents and the professionals who work with them to find out what they see as the big issues that need to be addressed.

Those views will be fed directly into the development of the Ten Year Children’s Plan, which will define how we will continue to improve children’s services, and ensure that every child has the chance to fulfil their potential.

So,  prevention, intervention, and quality planning and leadership – will be the recipe for success. And we will work together to build on the standards of the National Service Framework, through the new Public Service Agreements, to achieve it.