Young children from struggling families in some parts of England will be offered vaccinations at home to protect them from preventable diseases, the health secretary has said.
The pilot scheme, announced on Thursday as part of a drive to increase vaccine uptake, will see health visitors trained to spend more time with small numbers of families who could fall through the cracks of the NHS.
Wes Streeting told the that children’s healthcare had not been given the priority it deserved.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said it was “a national scandal” that more than half a million children faced long waits to access health services in England.
In an interview with Radio 4’s Today programme, Streeting said he was “shocked” by what he described as a lack of focus on children’s health when he was in opposition.
“As human beings, it is in our nature to prioritise children. You talk to the overwhelming majority of parents, good parents, they will take bullets for their children,” the health secretary said.
“There is that kind of innate sense of ‘I will do everything I can to protect my child’. I don’t think that’s reflected sufficiently in the state,” he added.
The pilot scheme was part of that aim, he said, targeting families who are not signed up to a GP surgery or face language barriers, travel costs or childcare issues which stop them getting to a doctor.
Uptake of childhood vaccines has declined over the past 10 years – no jabs met the 95% coverage target for children aged five and below, according to the latest data.
Twelve areas in London, the Midlands, the North East and Yorkshire, the North West, and South West will test the approach over the next year.
The government said all other families should continue to have children vaccinated at their local surgery.
Streeting said there had been a decline in the number of health visitors and community nursing over a number of years, and that government was developing a workforce plan to address recruitment.
Health visitors are registered nurses or midwives who have additional training in community public health nursing. They work with families with a child aged five and under to identify health needs.
In response to Streeting’s comments, the Conservatives accused Labour of having “no plan for children’s health or the health service as a whole”.
“Labour are trying to distract from their dismal failures by pointing the finger at the last government,” shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew said.
Professor Steve Turner, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, welcomed the plan and called on the health secretary to “right the wrongs of the past”.
Addressing NHS waiting times, he said it was now a “matter of routine” that children were not being seen by health professionals within the NHS’s 18-week target, adding that he was “particularly astounded” that a quarter of children wait more than a year for community treatment, compared with just 1% of adults.
“Long waits for community and elective care are unacceptable at any age, but this is especially true for children where delays can cause irreversible and lifelong harm if care isn’t provided during critical developmental windows,” Prof Turner said.
He added that the unequal treatment of adults and children “must end” by tackling obesity, protecting mental health, reducing exposure to nicotine and boosting vaccinations in children.
Children up to the age of six across the UK are to be offered vaccine protection against chickenpox free on the NHS from January 2026.