Dudley Strategy for Tackling Health Inequalities 2010-15

data which shows us locally what access parents across the social gradient have topaid parental leave during the first years of their children‟s life.Early Years: What Needs to be Done in Dudley?While data systems exist to look at progress, at a population level, on immunisation,breast feeding, and attainment at reception year of primary school, there are nosystems which enable the full picture to be obtained of the developmental progressof our children in the vital early years. Equally, the systems for tracking fidelity to theHealthy Child Programme and fidelity to important formal manual-based parentingprogrammes does not exist. Undoubtedly, each individual child‟s progress isrecorded in a health, education or children‟s centre record but the systems to extractthis and examine progress across the child population as a whole or fordisadvantaged sub-groups of the population is not there. This is a priority fordevelopment. It is not a small job and will require time to implement. Nevertheless,we will not be able to assess whether our interventions in early years are producingthe outcomes we desire if we do not have systems to allow us to view progress.It has not been possible in the timescale for production of this strategy to amass dataon the relative spend on children in the early years versus spend on the school yearsand the adolescent years in Dudley. Marmot (2010) acknowledged that this is notwholly possible at national level either. However, it should be possible to at leastreproduce for Dudley an analysis of the type presented in the national data in theMarmot Review. It is recommended that investment in school and adolescent yearsshould be examined to see if there is any way in which efficiency can be improved torelease resource to be invested in the vital early years.Dudley has no structured intensive home visiting service, such as that deliveredwithin a Family Nurse Partnership Programme. This is essential for some families.Any investment released from other areas for early years should be channelled intothe commissioning of a Family Nurse Partnership Programme for families on adefined set of eligibility criteria, with a clear means of auditing outcomes.The structured approach to implementation of formal parenting programmes set outin Dudley‟s Parenting Support and Family Learning Strategy (Dudley Children‟sTrust, 2009) should continue but with full tracking of adherence to eligibility criteriawhich ensure that those who need them most get them Impact in terms of outcomemeasures must be tracked.Undoubtedly, productivity would be improved and potentially some resourcereleased, if there was more formal integrated working between the Health Visitingservice and the Children‟s Centres, particularly between the outreach workers andHealth Visitors.Ensuring that paid parental leave is available for workers within Dudley may not bewithin the compass of the statutory agencies to deliver, but all statutory agenciesshould ensure that their own policies embrace this and economic regenerationinitiatives should promote this.32