Why it’s important
What we can do
How we'll measure progress
Why it’s important
We want all our children and young people to have the best start in life; to meet their needs and give them the best opportunity to be healthy and well. We want to support parents and carers, within their local communities, and to reduce inequalities that unfairly impact on the health and development outcomes of children and young people.
Where the building blocks for good health are weak or missing, this has a detrimental impact on children and young people:
- Around 25,000 children in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire growing up in poverty are more likely to experience health problems from birth and throughout life.
- Measures of school readiness at age five show a 20-25% gap between the most and least deprived areas of Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.
- More people in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire aged 16-17 are not in education, employment or training compared with the national average.
We also know that childhood obesity rates are increasing among children living in the poorest areas. Children who are obese have a much greater likelihood of being obese as an adult with higher risks of conditions like heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes.
This video features Lavinia King, Co-production Coordinator for Bristol Parent Carers, talking about the partnership work underway to transform neurodiversity services for children and young people in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.
What we can do
The first 1,001 days of a child’s life from birth to the age of two are the most important in terms of their mental, emotional and physical development. We will work together to support families during those first 1,001 days, prioritising support for households who are unfairly at risk of the poorest health outcomes.
We understand the importance of meeting the needs of children with neurodiverse needs and reducing the need for a diagnosis before a child and their family can access the help and support, they need. This will mean working together to ensure resources are targeted to ensure the best health outcomes for children and young people.
In 2024/25 we have committed to implement a different model of care to reduce the backlog of referrals for an autism and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessment. Whilst this change in model of care will address the current backlog in the short-term, we recognise the need to understand and implement a longer term and more sustainable change to meet rising autism, ADHD and other neurodivergent needs.
We are working across our partnership to transform services and ensure the needs of children, young people and their families are consistently met.
How we’ll measure progress
- We will improve access, child and family experience, and join up of services across health, social care, education and the voluntary and community sector.
- We will continue to build our local area partnerships, deliver improvement plans and learn from inspections to improve the lives and outcomes of children with special educational needs and disabilities.
- We will focus on reducing health inequalities for children and young people supported by NHS England’s Core20PLUS5 framework to inform action to reduce healthcare inequalities.
- We will continue to improve children’s mental health services, aligning with our all-age mental health strategy, to ensure children and young people are supported to meet their needs, earlier on, in their local community.
- We will produce a system action plan for early years children to ensure families have access to the support they need to improve children’s health and development outcomes.
This page provides an overview. To read about our plans in detail, take a look at the full Joint Forward Plan 2024-2029.
Joint Forward Plan 2024-2029Strategic Commitments
Outcomes Framework
The Strategic Commitments and Outcomes Framework tick boxes show a brief summary of how different areas of work contribute to our wider strategic aims and outcomes.
Outcomes framework – We use a system outcomes framework to measure our progress. Each outcome has linked indicators designed to monitor our progress and link it back to our strategic objectives.
Strategic commitments – These are the nine commitments we made in our Integrated Care System Strategy to transform our services.