Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

In Amendment No. 92, I seek assurance from the Government that they will fulfil their commitment set out in Care Matters to make the guidance on the health of looked-after children statutory for healthcare bodies as it is for local authorities. I also ask the Minister to provide further information regarding the Government’s plans for ensuring that local authorities and healthcare agencies work together to provide for the assessment of looked-after children’s physical, mental and emotional health needs. I am not referring here only to mental health but to the whole gamut of health needs. The NSPCC passed me some Ofsted statistics today that showed that for the 12-month period up to September 2006 one in five children in care received no health assessment, which means that 8,888 children did not receive any assessment at all. What the figures do not show is that in a significant number of cases the assessment will be only a basic health check and will not consider the child’s emotional and mental health needs. Clearly, that system needs changing. Looked-after children and young people are often disproportionately affected by physical and mental health problems, such as many different physical complaints, mental health disorders, high rates of self-harm or other high-risk behaviour, substance misuse and high rates of teenage conception and motherhood. This can obviously result only in them not achieving, or not achieving so well, across the five Every Child Matters outcomes of being healthy, staying safe, enjoying, achieving and making a positive contribution. I also know that some children—for example, children from black and minority ethnic groups and with disabilities—have health problems that may be more severe than those for children who do not have those disabilities. The Comprehensive Spending Review talks about the health and well-being of children and young people overall, in PSA target 12, and improving emotional health and well-being, particularly the emotional health of children in care, which is priority 4 of the same PSA target. There is the Healthy Care programme—perhaps the Minister could say something more about this—which seeks to develop Healthy Care partnerships across England, funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and developed by the NCB. The programme is rolling out across 90 local authorities via local multi-agency partnerships. That provides an excellent model for partnership working between local authorities, healthcare bodies and other partners. However, the responsibilities must be set out in legislation to ensure that looked-after children and young people experience improvements in their physical, mental and emotional health outcomes. Perhaps the Minister could give some detail on how these partnerships might work and how the Department of Health guidance, Promoting the Health of Looked After Children, can be developed on a statutory footing and revised to clarify the role of PCT chief executives in prioritising the health of looked-after children at the PCT board level. I realise that that is not his specific responsibility but I think that it overlaps with this amendment.