The main campaigning group for disabled children, Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM), has succeeded in getting the Government to consider the needs of children in its planned health reforms.
Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health, launched the new child health outcomes forum on 26 January. The forum has been tasked with creating an outcomes framework specifically for child health in the next three months. It will also be tackling long term systemic barriers that disabled children and young people face when accessing universal and specialist health services.
The forum will be jointly chaired by Professor Ian Lewis, medical director at the Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, and Christine Lenehan, director at the Council for Disabled Children. The forum will be seeking the views of children, parents, carers and professionals.
A sector-wide event is being hosted by the Council for Disabled Children on 9 March to explore how members can best engage and feed in evidence.
Julie Jennings, Manager of RNIB's Children, Young People and Families Team, is on the EDCM Board and has contributed to raising the concerns that led to the creation of the new forum. For more information or if you have any issues that you would like to feed in to the framework please contact Julie on Julie.Jennings@rnib.org.uk.
Read more about the campaign.