New advice on what to do if your child is ill

NEW RESOURCES to help parents work out what to do if their child is ill have been launched in Tower Hamlets. Is this a way to reassure worried parents or part of a larger move to restrict access to NHS services?

The materials on offer have been produced by Tower Hamlets Together (THT), which is a joint body of Tower Hamlets Council and local NHS hospitals and GPs and which tries to improve public health – including educating and supporting parents.

They have produced six little animations (two of which are up on their website) which go through common problems a child may have – a fever, a cough, etc. The two that are up are very short and simple – perhaps too simple to be really illuminating, and they do not carry just one clear message that parents might remember. The soundtrack is hard to hear and follow.

It’s hard to work out whether THT has designed these for parents to find easily and watch when their child is actually ill, or whether these are education videos which could be shown in ante-natal classes. It would be interesting to hear whether THT road tested the videos before production and what their user feedback was.

THT has also come up with a booklet which it says is easy to read. In some ways it is: it uses clear language and the text is set out on a traffic light style, colour coded background which will make it easier to home in on the actual area where the necessary advice is set out rather than wading through acres of prose.

As a booklet, it’s still quite wordy though – and it still ends up with advice such as see your GP (without saying whether it’s ok to wait days for an appointment) or phone 111 (though people who have done that have not always been pleased with the advice received).

It would have been nice if this could have been printed out and given to new mums as their children are born. It’s the sort of thing you could keep handy, on the mantelpiece or in the kitchen drawer. Not every mum turns to the computer when a child is ill – or would think to look on the Tower Hamlets Together website. Probably funds don’t allow this now.

However, there is one caveat. THT says that one of the reasons why it has produced this booklet is that many common illnesses can be treated by a pharmacist and if parents did this, fewer of them would go to GPs or walk-in centres or A&E. That is true: but it is very similar to the line that the Government is putting out at the moment to cover up the fact that the NHS is underfunded and to transfer the blame to patients trying to use it when they don’t really need it.

Lengthening waiting times at A&E are not down to too many parents going in with a toddler who has a bit of a cough – they are more down to high bed occupancy rates leaving too little space for seriously ill people to be admitted in a timely fashion.

Overall it’s a welcome initiative. If you have a child at home, download the book and/or bookmark the site – and if your child is ill, remember you have done this. Welcome the initiative as a good piece of public health education – but don’t take the blame for using the NHS.

•Read more about it:
Time to talk in Tower Hamlets
Thousands march as Tories struggle with NHS

[Adverts]