Working with other agencies

Abstract

The duty of external services is to help parents in their responsibility to care for their children. The health services have a role in maintaining the health of children through health promotion, with particular involvement where children have special needs and for specific tasks such as immunisation. An increasing number of children survive previously fatal conditions, such as cancer or cystic fibrosis, as a result of medical advances. Other chronic conditions such as diabetes, eczema and asthma, appear to have increased prevalence, and raise difficult questions about environmental or dietary changes. New problems arise, for example new forms of cerebral palsy, and children with a repaired or transplanted heart, whilst more very preterm babies survive, sometimes with severe handicap. There is an increasing recognition that more could and should be done for children with the ‘new morbidity’, learning difficulties, including specific learning disorders, and children with emotional and behavioural problems, all of which are particularly associated with social and economic disadvantage.

The purpose of the health service for children is to enable as many children as possible to reach adulthood with their potential uncompromised by illness, environmental hazard or unhealthy life style.

British Paediatric Association, 1991

Agencies should ensure... a concerted approach to inter-disciplinary and interagency working.

Working Together, 1991