Children to be supported to 'Start Well' in Greater Manchester

A plan to provide every child in Greater Manchester with the best start in life has been unveiled by the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Strategic Partnership, the body overseeing the devolution of health and social care services.

The Start Well vision will ensure every child grows up in a nurturing environment, with access to public service support helping youngsters to fulfil their potential as they move into primary and secondary education.

The primary objective of the plan is to increase the number of children in Greater Manchester who are ‘school ready’ by the age of five – a national measure of a child’s development.

Greater Manchester’s current school readiness figures are lower than the national average with the percentage of children achieving a good level of development in 2015 at 62.4%, compared with 66% nationally. However, there are also significant differences across the 10 boroughs, with school readiness as low as 57.2% in some regions across Greater Manchester.

Start Well will aim to tackle these inequalities by bringing together schools, nurseries, local authorities, NHS services, the voluntary and community sector and private providers to provide high quality education and coordinated support where necessary.

It is the first time that so many organisations and institutions have made a collective commitment to work better together to close the gap in health, education and social inequalities. This partnership working has been made possible through the advent of devolution.

Start Well aims to:

• Increase the percentage of children achieving a ‘good’ level of development.
• Improve mental health of parents with infant children.
• Reduce the number of babies with a low birth weight.
• Reduce levels of obesity at age four/five years.
• Reduce the number of decayed, missing and filled teeth in children aged five. 
• Reduce the rates of smoking at time of delivery.
• Reduce attendance at A&E for children aged up to four years.