Quality standard

Quality statement 2: Advice for parents or carers as part of the Healthy Child Programme 2-year review

Quality statement 2: Advice for parents or carers as part of the Healthy Child Programme 2-year review

Quality statement

Parents or carers of children are given advice about physical activity during their child's Healthy Child Programme 2‑year review.

Rationale

Children's participation in physical activity is important for their healthy growth and development. It is important to establish being physically active as a life‑long habit from an early age, and the Healthy Child Programme 2‑year review provides a good opportunity to advise on this. Giving advice to parents and carers at key points during their child's development can be an effective way to 'make every contact count'. It can also lead to whole families establishing good physical activity habits.

Quality measures

The following measures can be used to assess the quality of care or service provision specified in the statement. They are examples of how the statement can be measured, and can be adapted and used flexibly.

Structure

Evidence of local arrangements to ensure that parents or carers of children are given advice about physical activity as part of their child's Healthy Child Programme 2‑year review.

Data source: Evidence can be collected by information recorded locally by healthcare professionals and provider organisations, for example, local protocols and information provided to parents.

Process

a) Proportion of Healthy Child Programme 2‑year reviews in which parents or carers of children are given advice about physical activity.

Numerator – the number in the denominator in which parents or carers of children are given advice about physical activity.

Denominator – the number of Healthy Child Programme 2‑year reviews.

Data source: Data can be collected from information recorded locally by healthcare professionals and provider organisations, for example, from patient records and the Child Health Information System. NHS England publishes Experimental Community Services Statistics for health visiting on the number of children in the dataset who received the review and the number who received the review delivered face-to-face. The OHID publishes experimental statistics for health visitor service delivery on the number of children who received the review.

b) Proportion of Healthy Child Programme 2‑year reviews in which parents or carers of children are offered written information about local opportunities to be physically active.

Numerator – the number in the denominator in which parents or carers of children are offered written information about local opportunities to be physically active.

Denominator – the number of Healthy Child Programme 2‑year reviews.

Data source: Data can be collected from information recorded locally by healthcare professionals and provider organisations, for example, from patient records and the Child Health Information System. NHS England publishes Experimental Community Services Statistics for health visiting on the number of children in the dataset who received the review and the number who received the review delivered face-to-face. The OHID publishes experimental statistics for health visitor service delivery on the number of children who received the review.

Outcome

Proportion of children achieving the recommendations in the UK Chief Medical Officers' physical activity guidelines.

Numerator – the number in the denominator who achieving recommendations in the UK Chief Medical Officers' physical activity guidelines.

Denominator – the number of children.

Data source: Sport England's Active Lives Children and Young People Survey publishes data on physical activity in children.

What the quality statement means for different audiences

Service providers (health visiting services) ensure that their staff are trained to give parents or carers of children advice about physical activity and information about local opportunities to be physically active as a key component of the Healthy Child Programme 2‑year review.

Healthcare professionals (health visitors, nursery nurses and children's nurses) give parents or carers advice about physical activity and information about local opportunities to be physically active as a key component of the Healthy Child Programme 2‑year review.

Commissioners ensure that they commission services from providers who include giving advice about physical activity and information about local opportunities as a key component of the Healthy Child Programme 2‑year review. Commissioners may wish to monitor activity by requesting evidence of practice locally.

Parents or carers of children who are having their 2-year review are given information about the ways in which their child can benefit from being physically active. They are also given information about what they can do to be more active, as well as what is available locally.

Source guidance

Definitions of terms used in this quality statement

Advice about physical activity as part of the Healthy Child Programme 2-year review

Parents and carers of children should be advised that:

  • Children of pre‑school age who are capable of walking unaided should be physically active daily for at least 180 minutes (3 hours), spread throughout the day.

  • All children should undertake a range of moderate to vigorous intensity activities for at least 60 minutes over the course of a day.

  • All children should minimise the amount of time they spend being sedentary (being restrained or sitting) for extended periods (except time spent sleeping).

  • It is beneficial for them to get involved in physical activities with their children and to complete at least some local journeys (or some part of a local journey) with young children using a physically active mode of travel with the aim of establishing active travel as a life‑long habit from an early age.

Parents and carers of children should be given oral and written information about:

  • The benefits of physical activity and how enjoyable it is.

  • The benefits of minimising sedentary behaviours.

  • Local opportunities to be physically active.

[Adapted from the UK Chief Medical Officers' physical activity guidelines and NICE's guideline on physical activity for children and young people, recommendation 15, and expert opinion]

Healthy Child Programme 2-year review

This is the third, full health and development review that children have as part of the Department of Health and Social Care's Healthy Child Programme. This review will be carried out between the age of 2 and 2.5 years by a member of the Healthy Child team, usually a health visitor, nursery nurse or children's nurse. The review might be at a local children's centre, GP surgery or at home. [Adapted from NHS Choices' Your baby's health and development reviews]

Equality and diversity considerations

When giving parents and carers advice on physical activity for children, healthcare professionals should take into account the age, developmental stage and gender of the child, any medical needs as well as the ethnicity and socioeconomic status of the family in order to communicate the information in a sensitive manner. All information given about physical activity should be accessible to people with additional needs, such as physical, sensory or learning disabilities, and to people who do not speak or read English.

When sharing information about local opportunities to be active, healthcare professionals should take into account the needs of children from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and the needs of children with mental health conditions, and learning and physical disabilities.