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. 2022 Jul;9(2):183-187.
doi: 10.7861/fhj.2021-0093.

Back to the future? Lessons from the history of integrated child health services in England

Edward J Maile  1 , Ritvij Singh  2 , Georgia B Black  3 , Mitch Blair  1 , Dougal S Hargreaves  4
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Back to the future? Lessons from the history of integrated child health services in England

Edward J Maile et al. Future Healthc J. 2022 Jul.

Abstract

The UK has a long history of attempts to integrate child health services to improve outcomes, an ambition renewed in the recent The NHS Long Term Plan. It's therefore timely to review the history of integration to inform future initiatives. Key milestones include the Platt report (1959), Court report (1976), Sure Start (1999), National service framework (2004) and Facing the future report (2015). These stand against a backdrop of national NHS policy changes, with a myriad of local integration initiatives and research efforts in parallel. We suggest lessons for future integration initiatives: integration may support the quadruple aim; integration depends on addressing divides between primary and secondary care; workforce and funding challenges need to be resolved before integration can thrive; high-quality research and evaluation of integrated interventions is required; strong relationships between professional groups are key to integration; and integration can help address health inequalities.

Keywords: child health; health policy; health systems; integrated care; paediatrics.

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Figures

Fig 1.
Fig 1.
Vertical and horizontal paediatric integration. CAMHS = Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
Fig 2.
Fig 2.
Timeline of milestones in paediatric integration. CYP = children and young people.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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