Investing in Europe’s future: Mapping the gaps in child primary healthcare
Globally, 6.3 million children under the age of 5 years die every year, while 200 million don’t achieve their full developmental potential, according to the World Health Organization. With the growing recognition that health in individuals’ early years lays the groundwork for their lifelong well-being, policies and programmes aimed at improving children’s health have become more important. The existing child primary healthcare models are usually based on generic family doctors or paediatricians. However, there’s no consensus on the best way of providing such services that vary widely across Europe. The EU-funded MOCHA project has been addressing this challenge by analysing various aspects of primary care for children in 30 EU and European Economic Area countries. It covers various disciplines, including medicine, nursing, economics, informatics, sociology and policy management. The researchers involved with the project reviewed the current standards and published their suggestions in the journal ‘The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health’. They have outlined a set of essential principles and requirements for optimum healthcare following “an analysis of data gathered on several areas, including the integration of care for the child at the acute–community interface, the referral–discharge interface, the social care interface, nursing preparedness for practice, and experiences of the child and family.” In the same article, the researchers said: “The three main principles, underpinned by a child-centric approach, are access to care, co-creation of care, and effective integrated governance.” They added: “Collectively, the principles and standards offer a means to benchmark existing services for children living with complex care needs, to influence policy in relation to service delivery for these children, and to provide a suite of indicators with which to assess future service developments in this area.” Best practice The MOCHA (Models of Child Health Appraised) project was set up to obtain and analyse key information on a range of child primary care topics across Europe. These covered the delivery of care across organisational boundaries, such as primary and secondary care, social care and education. MOCHA’s assessment also included complex care as well as school health and adolescent health services. In addition, MOCHA looked at issues regarding equity of provision and delivery for all children, and use of electronic record systems in child healthcare. It also developed measures of quality, outcome, cost and workforce. The MOCHA project focuses on prevention and wellness. As stated on CORDIS: “There is a need for focus on preventive care and on fostering good health in a population that is largely well, and can develop good habits that can lead to a healthy adulthood and old age, particularly at a time when several new Member States are reviewing and developing their health systems.” With the project now entering its final phase, partners will make evidence-based recommendations for optimal child healthcare models and suggest how countries might adopt them. For more information, please see: MOCHA project website
Countries
United Kingdom
