Raising Healthy Kids newsletterFrom the Ministry of Health15 December 2016Welcome to the first edition of the Raising Healthy Kids Health Target newsletter. The health target is that by December 2017, 95 percent of obese children identified in the B4 School Check (B4SC) programme will be offered a referral to a health professional for clinical assessment and family based nutrition, activity and lifestyle interventions. A word from the health target championIn my role as Raising Healthy Kids Clinical Champion Childhood Obesity I’m working closely with many of you in the primary care sector to support the implementation of clinical pathways. I’ll send these newsletters out every now and then to provide you with updates on progress and some of the work being done across the country to help support families with children who are identified as very overweight. If there is anything that you would like to know more about please get in touch with me: hayden_mcrobbie@moh.govt.nz. First quarter target results releasedYou will have by now have seen the quarter one results for the Raising Healthy Kids Target. Although no DHB has reached the 95% target (and I’d not expect this in the first quarter), there were some star performers – well done to Waitemata and Auckland DHBs. A shared care approach is likely to offer the best solution and DHBs are working on referral pathways that will provide support for families who have children that are identified as very overweight to support them in adopting healthy lifestyles. Encouraging families and whānau to accept referrals offeredWe are always going to have family and whānau who decide to decline a referral for assessment and ongoing support, which is why they are counted in the numerator when calculating the target result. However we’d like to see the rates of declines kept as low as possible. High rates of ‘declines’ may, at least in part, be reflective of the initial conversation. Many parents and caregivers may not understand the rationale of being referred to their GP or other relevant health care professionals, in fact many of you may hear, ‘What’s my GP going to do about it?’ The role of the health care professional is to assess the child for any consequence associated with childhood obesity (eg, obstructive sleep apnea) and check for any underlying cause. As you all know, the main consequence of childhood obesity is adult obesity and the most common cause is an unhealthy lifestyle. Conversations with families and whānau |