Experts call for further improvements to children’s healthcare in UK

Support for children and young people's health in the UK has improved in recent times, but further progress is needed to bring services up to the required standard.

This is according to the first annual report by the Children and Young People's Health Outcomes Forum, which has assessed the progress made since the forum made its initial recommendations in 2012.

Among the solutions it has proposed include greater efforts to take children's comments on board to improve the services they use, providing better training for staff and improving access to relevant data.

Other measures included more integration between children’s health and social care, a bigger role for schools in early intervention and prevention, a new strategy on children's mental health services and an update to the NHS Constitution.

Maternity and child health minister Dr Dan Poulter said: "There is much more to do and we want the NHS to go even faster to improve care for children and young people."

The government has been making a number of changes in recent months to help improve children's health, including a recent move to ban smoking in cars transporting children.