Health impacts
The right to health – to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health – is a fundamental human right as is the right to life. The persistence of serious health inequalities in England provides clear evidence that this right is not being fulfilled.
Having enough good food, a warm safe home and free healthcare should be basics which children can take for granted. Instead too many children and their families are going without and there are impacts of this on health.
Other areas including societal change in attitude to schooling, risk and children’s free time has led to a reduction of free play, with knock on impacts on exercise and well-being. Mental health of our children is not good, and there are unacceptably long waits for support.
Environmental factors including air pollution threatens the right to health.
“Improving young children’s health remains one of the most effective means of creating a strong and fair society.”
Richard Batcheler, Dr Dougal Hargreaves, Jordan Rehill and Dr Rakhee Shah
Nuffield Society:Are young children healthier than they were two decades ago? The changing face of early childhood in the UK (2021)
“For the first time in nearly 40 years, there has been a sustained increase in infant mortality in the poorest areas. …. Infant mortality is an uncommon event and represents the most severe tip of the iceberg in terms of the impact of social conditions on health. It can, however, act as an early warning system or litmus test of the overall health of societies.”
Emeritus Professor David Taylor-Robinson et al
British Medical Journal: Assessing the impact of rising child poverty on the unprecedented rise in infant mortality in England, 2000–2017: time trend analysis (2019)
Defunded NHS
The importance of our National Health Service for health and well-being, and functioning as a society cannot be overstated yet successive governments have increased privatisation and cut pay and conditions of the workers. Long waits, lack of treatment and care seriously harms and causes death, to children as well as everyone else.
“The privatization of the NHS began in the 1980s and it’s been an incremental process over several decades where there’s been an ideological commitment to the private sector despite great opposition from the public.”
Professor Allyson Pollock (NHS plc: the Privatisation of our Health Care)
Quoted in The Nation: How to Destroy a National Health Service (2020)
“This is the well known strategy for privatisation: you de-fund it, you make it a laughing stock, and you blame somebody else.”
2023 data revealed that there were 403,955 children waiting consultant led treatment. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health published a statement on the data, saying that these numbers failed to capture the true extent of the issue and that growing but hidden waiting times for GPs and other community care was making the situation worse.
“The children’s community waiting list is now growing three times faster than the adult community services waiting list.”
“The consequences of such long waiting times are particularly damaging for children. Prolonged waits not only impair children’s mental and physical development but also have a detrimental impact on their education and overall wellbeing. RCPCH is deeply concerned with the de-prioritisation of children and young people in current health policy and in the wider political agenda.”
Mental health
Children are experiencing increased levels of stressors, linked to our education system, lack of play, lack of exercise, poverty and deprivation. The right to play – of critical importance to the well-being of children – is not being respected and this has impacts on health and happiness. Children are not getting anywhere near enough exercise which harms both physical health and feelings of well-being.
The 2020-21 Understanding Society data showed children’s happiness scores with life as a whole, with friends, appearance, school and society were all significantly lower than in 2009 -10. Only family remained a stable factor for children. Charity YoungMinds report that the number of young people with mental health problems has almost doubled since 2016.
In addition, factors such as societal shifts in attitudes to schooling, to risk, to town planning have all hit children’s right to play, and to independent self-initiated activities damaging children’s well-being.
[The 2020-1] “Good Childhood Report reveals that too many young people are unhappy with their lives…This is unacceptable. The Government must act now to protect every childhood.”
The Children’s Society
The Good Childhood Report (2021)
long wait for support
The Local Government Association reported that the rate of children aged 10-14 admitted to hospital for self harming had increased from 124 per 100,000 population in 2011/12 to 307 per 100,000 population in 2021/22. The average waiting time for children and young people to access mental health services was from 13 to 80 days. Only 20% of children were seen within four weeks.
“Thousands of young people are being left waiting so long for mental health support or treatment that they have attempted to take their own lives. The heart-breaking reality is that referrals to the NHS are continuing to reach record highs but uncertainty in Government means that time and resources are being diverted away from a rapidly escalating mental health crisis for young people.”
Emma Thomas, Chief Executive of YoungMinds
Mental health waiting times harming young people (2022)
Poverty and inequality harms
The poverty, deprivation and inequality which increasing numbers of children and their families are facing is negatively impacting their right to health and life. The government’s failure to meet their international legal obligations across various measures – food, housing, poverty – all impact children in the most fundamental way. Fast rising numbers of children are being admitted to hospital with malnutrition
Food insecurity harms health
“As a nation we shouldn’t be having malnourished children. We shouldn’t be having children with rickets. We should not be having people with iron deficiencies or low folic acid.”
Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of GPs (RCGP)
The Guardian: Surge in number of people in hospital with nutrient deficiencies, NHS figures show (2023)
“The NHS will pay the price, now and into the future, for treating the acute and chronic conditions caused by hunger, inadequate nutrition and unhealthy diets.”
Fuel poverty harms health
Impacts of cold homes on children’s health are serious. Harms include being twice as likely to suffer from respiratory illnesses like asthma and bronchitis, becoming seriously ill from minor illnesses such as colds and flu becoming and low weight gain and higher hospital admission in infants.
“There will be excess deaths among some children where families are forced into not being able to heat their homes.”
Dr Simon Langton-Hewer, president of the British Paediatric Respiratory Society, quoted
The Guardian: Cold homes will cost children’s lives and cause long-term damage, warn experts (2022)
“Single parent households have consistently had the highest proportion of households in fuel poverty.”
Department of Energy Security & Net Zero, UK Government
Annual Fuel Poverty Statistics in England, 2024 (2023 data)
“It’s simply insupportable in Britain in the 21st century to have so many people that are fuel insecure. The government needs to act, and act right now. It’s clear we are facing a significant humanitarian crisis with thousands losing their lives and millions of children’s development blighted, leading to inequalities that will last a lifetime.”
Professor Michael Marmot quoted
The Guardian: Cold homes will cost children’s lives and cause long-term damage, warn experts (2022)
Environmental impacts
Air pollution is one of the most immediate ways that children in England’s health is being negatively impacted, contrary to their right to health and to life. Both the Council of Europe and the Committee on the Rights of the Child have flagged up the UK’s poor compliance on air quality.
rights report on uk
“air pollution is one of the greatest environmental risks to health, and children are particularly vulnerable. Over one million children in England lived in neighbourhoods where air pollution was double the WHO standards in 2020”
Dunja Mijatović,
Commissioner for Human Rights,
Council of Europe
Report on UK (2022)
rights report on uk
“Adopt legislation on air quality and urgently take measures to ensure children’s environmental health, including by improving air quality in urban areas, preventing children’s exposure to environmental toxins and high levels of lead”
Committee on the Rights of the Child
Concluding observations on the combined sixth and seventh reports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2023)
Existential threat
The breakdown of natural systems, including climate, put children’s lives at extreme risk.
“As eco distress and anxiety is rising amongst CYP, there was a growing fear about the future they will inherit and the impact it will have on their future. Out of the 10,000 participants described above, 75% of young people stated that they think the future is frightening and 83% of them believe that humans have failed to take care of the planet.”
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
Preserving the world for future generations: Children and young people’s perspectives on how to tackle climate change October (2023)
“Young people based in London who founded ‘Choked Up’, an advocacy group for clean air and a clean environment, stated, “It is not just as simple as ‘solving or fixing’ climate change – there is a whole system, a whole multitude of other issues around racial and social justice that are intertwined with the climate crisis”
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
Preserving the world for future generations: Children and young people’s perspectives on how to tackle climate change October (2023)