Future health of Medway

It is quite common at the moment to listen to Tories waffle on about the Big Society and how anyone who volunteers for anything must be doing so under the grandiose title. It is of course total fiction.

I have volunteered for most of my adult life - from People & Planet and Fair Trade fashion parades at Durham University to getting involved in campaigning for a number of organisations. For my sins I was also briefly a Special Constable in the Police as well, alas all in a former life.

I support volunteerism and so do most rational and good spirited people.

The second problem with the concept of the Big Society is not only that it tries to politicise voluntary activity but it then starves it, in some cases by design, of resource.

So it is with much concern that this blogger has recently read the Medway Safeguarding Children's Board Annual Report, which is due incidently, to be discussed by the Council next week.

It is worth a read (though it is 100 pages) because it details the major health challenges of the future.

The Board is comprised of health, local authority and child care professionals who regularly meet to discuss the health outcomes for children and adults across Medway. It works with the state and voluntary sector.

Contained within the report are some major concerns in particularly deprived wards which currently have Labour representation such as, Chatham Central, Luton & Wayfield and Gillingham North:

To summarise the report

• Medway is deprived compared to the rest of the South East: 25 neighbourhoods in top 25% of nationally deprived areas.
• Medway has a higher level of child poverty than most similar local authorities (around 20%).
• High levels of smoking, obesity and poor diet.
• Life expectancy lower than average; at ward level the gap in life expectancy is 6.8 years.Teenage pregnancy levels remain high even though they have come down over the country as a whole. Particularly high in: Chatham Central, Luton & Wayfield, and Gillingham North.
• Gillingham North contains the highest number of people on housing benefit in Medway .
• Chatham Central, Luton & Wayfield, and Gillingham North are the wards with the lowest scores on the Child Wellbeing Index.

What is most concerning in the report however is that if you read between the lines the Board is waving a red flag about future funding. The implicit concern is clear; that the government cuts are driving even more responsibility for delivering services onto the voluntary sector, who are themselves starved of cash, and who potentially will not be able to deliver.

The results are therefore entirely predictable and also worrying for Medway which has some stubborn problems.

I have singled out two areas to highlight - Future investment in child care provision in Medway - where the report highlights increased pressure on children’s social care, where demand has risen 40-50% between 2008 and 2010 and where the budget for services is being cut by the Tories. Secondly, where Tory-led cuts to the Healthy Schools Programme, are pushing efforts to combat major social problems onto the voluntary sector. Meanwhole, Medway is one of the worst areas in the South East for childhood obesity and poor diet with 10% of children identified at reception age increasing to 20% of children being classed as obese by Year 6.

Next week the Children's Overview & Scrutiny Committee will discuss this report and the associated statistics for dealing with complaints in this sector. There is much food for thought here.

It deserves attention.