The Child Minder

Watching TV is bad for you - I knew it all along! According to the latest research, reported in Medical News Today watching violent telly between the ages of 2 and 5 is linked to aggressive and anti-social behaviour in boys when they reach the age of 7.

By Clare Jerrom

Obesity levels among children are rising. Children are getting fatter. And I have to say that I’m not surprised as I make my daily trip to work surrounded by school children.

A child has been taken into care in Tower Hamlets because his parents weren’t coping with his disability and social workers were worried about his weight.

Confirmation that almost half of Primary Care Trusts are on track to end the financial year in the red is extremely worrying for anyone in social services - and hardly surprising given that £1.6bn is being held back from PCT and other budgets in order to balance the books elsewhere in the NHS.

There is already plenty of evidence to suggest that such cash-strapped PCTs are shunting costs to local authorities, to the detriment of services and service users. Only last week, a survey carried out by Terrence Higgins Trust and professional associations, for example, revealed that money intended for sexual health has been diverted elsewhere by almost two-third of PCTs.

The NHS must find other ways to balance its books next year if there is to be any hope of achieving effective joint working between health and social services and of taking the preventive agenda forward around key issues such as sexual health, mental health, and substance misuse.

Failure to do so will only help keep the UK at the bottom of the pile in terms of children's wellbeing.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has published new guidelines on tackling obesity.

Ironically, though, their publication coincided with that of the report by the health select committee which confirms that public health services - along with mental health services and voluntary sector-run services - have been hit hard by attempts to bring Primary Care Trust deficits under control.

Guidelines are all well and good. But without the necessary resources (money and staff), the rhetoric cannot become reality. The Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association is already warning that plans to tackle the obesity timebomb will be hampered by a shortage of school nurses.

The MPs' report expresses concerns that some changes currently taking place in the NHS are being driven by the need to drive down deficit levels, rather than a desire to improve services. The government must take this criticism on board and ensure that increased expenditure designed to tackle ill health - including obesity - should be used for just that.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has angered disability rights campaigners by suggesting that it is sometimes wrong to initiate intensive neonatal care in very premature or seriously ill babies.

The college urged the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which has been looking at the issue for the past two years and is due to publish its report later this month, to "think more radically about non-resuscitation, withdrawal of treatment decisions, the best-interests test and active euthanasia" in relation to the sickest newborn babies.

But organisations like the British Council of Disabled People insist it is "completely wrong" for medical professionals - or anyone else for that matter - to determine whether someone else's quality of life will be good enough.

The moral dilemmas that surround cases like these were illustrated recently by the case of Charlotte Wyatt.

Junior health minister Ivan Lewis has announced that 35 children's hospices in England will receive a slice of the £27m promised for the sector over the next three years.

The government promised the emergency cash injection after a delegation from the Association of Children's Hospices met the prime minister to flag up an impending financial crisis once Big Lottery funding ends this year.

The consultation stage of an independent review of the long term funding of children's hospices and other palliative care services in England started in October and the review is expected to be completed by the spring.

Click here to email the review team with your contribution.