Debate contribution: Children's Year 1 Health Review

Debate contribution by Mr Danny Donnelly on 10 March 2025.

MLA

Mr Danny Donnelly

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

10 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Children's Year 1 Health Review

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4841518

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the proposer of the motion and all who spoke for their contributions. I will make a few points before highlighting some of the points raised by Members who spoke previously. As my colleague from Lagan Valley said when proposing it, our amendment does not seek to change the motion, which is already very good, but to improve it with two additional points. First, the importance of delivering an updated Healthy Child, Healthy Future framework, and, secondly, to recognise the overlap between Health and Education in child development. As mentioned, the first two and a half years of a child's life are extremely important, and these six reviews are a key part of that. Health visitors can play an important role in assessing children and reassuring their parents. That is particularly important given the rise of misinformation on social media, including advice that is promoted without sufficient evidence.

The Minister has stated here and in answers to questions for written answer that workforce pressures are the key problem in respect of the missed one-year-old health reviews, as evidenced by the 2023-24 statistics that other Members have raised. That report also highlights the roll-out of Encompass, and while that will be beneficial in the long term, it can create short-term problems. I encourage the Minister to look into best practice from our other trusts in their roll-out to date, given that the Southern Trust will launch Encompass in less than two months. I also welcome the update from the Minister on the refresh of the Healthy Child, Healthy Future framework, and I look forward to further updates from the Minister in the near future. I now turn to some of the comments made by other Members during the debate. My Lagan Valley colleague Michelle Guy pointed out that the value of these assessments is that they happen regularly, so they must be able to do that. Our Health Committee Chair, Philip McGuigan, or Daideo

, called for the Department of Health to expand the role of health visitors in health and education. Colin McGrath highlighted the regional disparity in service delivery, with 46% of children in the Southern Trust currently not being seen. He also highlighted the fact that that was previously 65% and noted the improvement, albeit with lots more work to do. He also pointed out that the issue got bad when this place was not functioning and that a Minister could have been in post a lot earlier to address that. He is right, of course: when this place goes down, services are impacted on and people suffer. Protecting services such as this is another reason why we need to reform our political institutions to prevent any one party from blocking the formation of a functioning Executive. Órlaithí Flynn raised the opportunity for health visitors to pick up on the signs of domestic violence in the home, which is obviously a huge issue for women at this vulnerable time. Peter Martin talked about the pace of brain development — 80% in the first 1,000 days — and the lifelong impact of events that take place during that time. He also highlighted the fact that those health visits are early interventions, and there is clearly a lot of cross-party support for those interventions. Gerry Carroll raised concern about the lack of Irish language services available to health visitors and to families who speak Irish. He also raised the impact of poverty on life opportunities and called for the implementation of an anti-poverty strategy. The Minister of Health, Mike Nesbitt, mentioned the spark within each child and stated that the only acceptable target for assessments is 100%. He said that they are entirely consistent with his desire to shift left and tackle inequalities. He also announced that the refreshed framework will be published in May to help children to be school-ready and ready to learn. There is a good degree of agreement around the Chamber on the importance of health visits and early intervention, and our intervention —. Sorry, our —

Apologies.

Our amendment; thank you. Our amendment is to build upon an already strong motion.

692 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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