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Evaluation of the Early Years GP Child Health Hubs Pilots for the NHS North West London Integrated Care Board
Evaluation of the Early Years GP Child Health Hubs Pilots for the NHS North West London Integrated Care Board
Professor Mitch Blair, Dr Bina Ram, and Professor Dougal Hargreaves led the evaluation of the Early Years GP Child Health Hub Pilots, which deliver integrated healthcare services for children aged 0-5 years and their families.
GP Child Health Hubs (CHHs) based on the Connecting Care for Children (CC4C) model have been well established in Northwest London (NWL) for over a decade, and have been evaluated as being cost effective and efficient. They are popular with parents, carers, and professionals, and are an established part of the NHS England Guidance on Neighbourhood Multidisciplinary Teams (MDTs) for Children and Young People.
NHS England (NHSE) funded a team to carry out a project to build on the success of GP CHHs to further improve health and wellbeing of infant and early years child health in the London. Three boroughs, Harrow, Brent, and Ealing, were identified as the pilot sites with a focus on establishing and sustaining a “hyper-local preventive care team“ (HLPCT) around the most vulnerable families at neighbourhood level. The project was funded for 2-years (April 2023 to March 2025), and was supported by a central Integrated Care Board (ICB) Programme Manager and Project Manager together with a GP lead from each borough and their local project managers and business intelligence analysts.
The report describes the impact and learning to date from each site, and recommendations for further GP CHH development, and key recommendations for the Integrated Care System (ICS).
Read the executive summary
Read the executive summary
Executive Summary March 2025.pdfRead the Full Report
Read the Full Report
Evaluation of the Early Years Pilots FINAL REPORT NO WATERMARK.pdfAccess the Early Years Toolkit (Coming Soon)
Access the Early Years Toolkit (Coming Soon)
Professor Mitch Blair
Professor Mitch Blair
Professor Mitch Blair, Clinical Lead of the evaluation said:
“This 2 year pilot project successfully established hyperlocal preventive care teams in three North West London boroughs which included key components of well functioning mature GP Child Health Hubs, local authority Family Hubs, and purposeful engagement of the voluntary sector.
My own clinical and research career started in prevention of ill health in young children, and working in many different countries with policy makers both nationally and internationally. I believe that prevention in all its forms, is most effectively delivered in mature, stable community teams working in an integrated way with specialist and voluntary sector organisations to create the best possible services.”
Highlighting the importance of integrated healthcare services to improve child health
Highlighting the importance of integrated healthcare services to improve child health
Families already facing barriers to access healthcare continue to face challenges which will impact their children’s health. Missed opportunities for preventive care, early intervention, and timely management of health conditions lead to increased hospitalisations, higher healthcare costs, and poorer wellbeing of individuals. Young children, particularly under-fives, are the highest attending population group for urgent and emergency services. Early interventions to identify health, development and support needs are critical to improve life chances.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
NHS North West London Integrated Care Board, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Northwest London, Imperial College London (Department of Primary Care and Public Health, and Mohn Centre for Children’s Health and Wellbeing), Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Lara Ritchie, Lisa Lucas, Kajl Ahmad, Subhash Pokhrel, Amrit Banstola, and all others who have contributed to this work.
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