Women and children's health

An initiative to boost women’s and children’s health has been launched in Cheshire and Merseyside, to run for the next 18 months to two years.

Initially the programme was aimed at improving maternity services. However, it soon became apparent that maternal health was inextricably linked with improving health for the whole family and so the partnership was widened to cover child health too. There are high levels of obesity, diabetes, and respiratory disorders in reception-aged children and this was something that the partnership wanted to tackle.

‘What we did not want to do was fix something in one area and it would still be a problem elsewhere,’ Catherine McClennan, the programme director at NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Women’s and Children’s Partnership told Independent Nurse.