Continuity and access to services: How do key transition points – including moves between homes, stability of caring environments, changes in professional support, leaving care, and moving from child to adult health services – affect continuity of physical health support, engagement with services, and health outcomes for care‑experienced young people? What models of health transition planning and support for care‑experienced young people (for example at the point of leaving care or moving into adult services) have been most effective in maintaining connection, engagement, and trust in health services?
Background
Improving the physical health of care experienced children and young people is a complex challenge, not least because their health trajectories can differ substantially before, during and after periods of living in the ‘care system’. The Children’s Health in Care in Scotland (CHiCS) study shows that population wide linkage of social care and health records is possible at scale, and that care experienced children experience higher rates of mortality, prescriptions, hospitalisations, and a range of physical and neurodevelopmental conditions across the life course.
However, understanding health is not only about understanding the prevalence of conditions. Evidence from CHiCS also highlights the importance of how young people access and use health services, including patterns of preventive care, missed appointments, emergency admissions and other interactions across the system. This includes consideration of early childhood development, recognising the importance of physical growth, early development, and the foundations laid in infancy and early years. Administrative datasets alone provide limited insight into unmet need or how well services respond to children’s experiences and circumstances. Better evidence on service access, pathways, and the support required at key points in a young person’s journey would strengthen policy and help deliver health care that truly reflects the ambitions of The Promise.
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