New early years service for Birmingham families

Following consultation on a new and fairer system for providing early years health and wellbeing services for children and families in the city, a revised plan for its delivery has been published.

The current patchwork of services can be really hard for some families to access, meaning fewer children in Birmingham than the national average currently reach a good development by the time they start school.

The new system – to be delivered by Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHFT) – will be fairer and easier to access, bringing together the current health visiting service and children’s centre services. This will create a network of community-based services around local early years’ hubs.

Although it will be a city-wide service, it will be planned and delivered at district level in order to connect with local communities. There will be a minimum of one main site (hub) per district providing access to a full range of services. Additionally there will be community locations and well-baby clinics where families can access a range of services.

Councillor Brigid Jones, cabinet member for children, families and schools, said: “We were faced with huge budget cuts from central government that meant we had to make big changes to the service. Coupled with this was the need to address underperformance and inconsistency of our service; not enough children reach a good level of development by the time they start school and some of our most vulnerable children do not access services, or don’t get good enough support from them.

“We've chosen to make the best of the budget we've got left by focusing on what the public told us matters most, which is staff and services rather than bricks and mortar. The result of this is our new community based model, with an increased range of access points going into areas we haven't reached before.

“I know this is one of our most valued services and we have listened throughout the public consultation and made changes as a result.*

“I have always been absolutely clear about the biggest reason we're changing and integrating our services: to improve outcomes for children and families. I just wish that the government had left us with the money to operate the service on the scale our families need.”

Early years services will be based on:

• key centres with concentrations of specialist services and expertise , known as hubs
• mixed teams of staff with different skills working collaboratively together
• some groups of staff based very locally
• services tailored to individual family and local need.

What this means is:

• recognised larger centres providing a focus for staff and children and families
• some services provided in recognised locations such as GP services and libraries
• some staff working from bases but largely being out in the community most of the day
• utilising technology to make access to some services more convenient for families
• utilising technology to enable staff to work more effectively including being able to update records on the move or very promptly after appointments.

BCHFT will deliver the new service in partnership with Barnardo’s, Spurgeons Children’s Charity, St Paul’s Community Development Trust and The Springfield Project.

Gareth Howells, nursing and therapies director at Birmingham Community Healthcare, said:
“As a partnership working to support all aspects of health and wellbeing for pre-school children and their families in communities throughout Birmingham, we are committed to ensuring continuing provision of universal services of the highest quality.

“Our aim is to ensure that all of Birmingham’s children are healthy, happy and well prepared to start school, and support Birmingham City Council’s vision ‘to give every child in Birmingham an equal chance to have the best start in life so they can achieve their full potential’.

“This is a large project, with an increased number of locations at which families can access support, which we are confident will deliver very significant benefits for families and communities across the city.

“Throughout the process we have listened to what families need and want. That is what has shaped our approach as we work through the challenges in partnership to get the service absolutely right.”

Maps of provision in all 10 districts are available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4surA5

*You said, we did