Other UK nations recognise Scotland's superior child health outcomes

But the Scottish unionist media and English political parties won't admit it

This letter was published in the 7 February edition of The National and the 8th of February edition of the Edinburgh Evening News.

Other UK nations recognise the superiority of Scotland’s health and benefits systems compared with their own, yet the Scottish media and unionist politicians seem to derive great pleasure in criticising both. 

Paul Kellagher is a social worker in Northern Ireland who manages several childrens’ services where the number of referrals to its Family Services hub has soared by 160%.

He praises the Scottish Child Payment and calls for its adoption in Northern Ireland. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation agrees. It has called the Child Payment a ‘watershed’ that shows poverty can be tackled with political will.

Then this morning (February 6th) on Radio 4, Alison Morton, CEO of the Institute of Health Visiting in England said that “many children are not receiving the support they need” due to a 40% cut in health visitors over the last nine years. When babies and their families aren’t seen by a health visitor, the early warning mechanism to identify problems and treat them before they become critical is stripped out. This has knock-on effects on other services such as A&E visits which in England have risen 42% in the last decade. The under 1s are the highest users of A&E.  

Ms Morton noted pointedly that “In Scotland they don’t have this problem because they have intensive home visiting by health visitors who support families in the heart of communities.” Not only that, but she said Scotland has much a higher uptake of immunisation, better identification of children with complex health conditions and disabilities, and better and rising breast feeding rates. But in England, all of these metrics are worsening.

Recently, Sir Andrew Pollard expressed concern about rising infant mortality rates in England. Of the four nations, Scotland has the lowest infant mortality, 3.1 deaths per 1000 live births, vs 3.8 in England, 4.2 in Wales and 4.5 in NI.

These better outcomes are because the Scottish Government understands the value of investing in children who are, after all, the future. An independent Scottish Government will be able to do far more. It’s a pity children in other UK nations aren’t equally valued.