Delegates at the RCN congress in Bournemouth have voted overwhelmingly to lobby the UK governments to invest in children and young people's health services and end child health inequality.
Of the 419 votes cast over the resolution, 414 voted in favour, representing 99.52% of the voting members present. Two delegates voted against the motion, while three abstained. The debate began as a discussion, but Andrew McGovern, an RCN member from North East London, proposed the issue become a resolution.
The issue of child health inequality on the agenda was proposed by RCN member and children's nurse Rachel Hollis, and seconded by Zeba Arif. Ms Hollis spoke passionately about the rise in child poverty in the previous five years that has reversed the progress since the 1990s. The UK was one of the most unequal countries in Western Europe, she said, which had a direct impact on the health of the country's children.
'Every day, five children under the age of 14 in the UK die,' she said, 'who would not have died in a country like Sweden (which has one of the lowest rates of inequality in a developed country).'
Speakers at the debate discussed the impact of current government policy on children and young people's health services. Points that were raised included the necessity of protecting and expanding health visiting services particularly as responsibility for commissioning health visitors will shift from NHS England to local authorities, which could impact the resources available to health visitors. One speaker described the cuts to child health services as 'atrocious' after telling how 15 school nurses in her area covered 32,000 school children.
Speakers also criticised the government's decision to cut £200 million from public health budgets from local authorities, which will lead to a squeeze on resources for services including school nursing and health visiting.
Rod Thompson, a public health commissioner, said: 'The cuts to the public health budget will affect the care we are able to provide. George Osborne does not understand the evidence base for children in poverty, and he does not seem to care.'
The resolution passed was for RCN Council to lobby all the UK governments to invest in child health and end child health inequality.
RCN Congress will run until Thursday June 25 at the Bournemouth International Centre and can be watched live online at the RCN website: bit.ly/1ItuLAw