Health of looked after young people prioritised
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has launched a consultation on a quality standard on the health and wellbeing of looked after children and young people.
NICE has a new responsibility set out in the Health and Social Care Act (2012) to develop quality standards and other guidance for social care in England.
The draft quality standard for looked-after children and young people consists of 13 statements including:
- Looked-after children and young people, and young people who are covered by leaving care arrangements are actively involved in decisions at every stage of their care.
- Looked-after children and young people, and young people who are covered by leaving care arrangements, who move between services or across local authority areas or health boundaries, experience continuity of services.
- Carers of looked-after children, and of young people, receive ongoing high-quality training, support and supervision to enable them to promote the health and wellbeing of children and young people in their care.
The care system should consider the standards when planning and delivering services as part of a general duty to secure continuous improvement in quality.
Nice also published quality standards on supporting people to live well with dementia. Consultation on the draft quality standards will run from 16 August until 16 October 2012.
Dr Gillian Leng, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Health and Social Care at NICE said: “As part of our preparation for taking on our new role in social care in April 2013, we are currently running a pilot programme for developing social care quality standards. This programme is focused on two topics - the health and wellbeing of looked-after children and young people and supporting people to live well with dementia.
“We are very pleased to be able to issue these two draft quality standards for consultation; they provide an early version of what high quality care should look like in dementia, and for looked after children and young people,” she added.
Previous Nice guidance suggests 60% of Looked After Young People have emotional and mental health problems. YoungMinds is currently running two projects dedicated to improving experiences and outcomes for Looked After Young People.
For more on our Looked After Young People projects visit our website.
YoungMinds produced a report on improving the health of Looked After Young People.
The consultation document is here.
