Child health pre-school review coverage
2022 to 2023

About this release

This annual release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides statistics on the coverage of child health reviews offered to preschool children as part of the nationally agreed child health programme. Information is shown by NHS Board and council area of residence, deprivation level and sex. Information is provided for children becoming eligible for each of the reviews in 2002/03 (or later if the review has been added to the schedule more recently) to 2022/23.

Main points

• Of children becoming eligible for review in 2022/23, there were reductions of 1-3% in coverage compared with the previous year across the Health Visitor first visit (10-14 days), the 6-8 week review, the 13-15 month review and the 27-30 month review, with 95%, 90%, 89%, and 87% of eligible children, respectively, recorded as having their review.

Bar chart showing coverage of pre-school reviews 2018/19 to 2022/23

Close

Coverage of Pre-School reviews 2018/19 to 2022/23

• Coverage of the 4-5 year review fell from 81% in 2021/22 to 69% in 2022/23, with notable drops in some NHS Board areas of up to 30% percentage points, suggesting this review was not being universally implemented over this period. Due to the expected lag in data availability for this review, comparable final coverage for the children eligible in 2022/23 can be expected to be around 5% points higher by the time of the next annual report.
• Coverage varies by NHS Board, this variation was higher in 2022/23 than in previous years. At the first visit the majority of Board areas had coverage of 95% and above, but in a small number this was below 90%; for the 4-5 year review there was a wide range of coverage between areas (44% to 94%).
• Coverage of reviews for children eligible in 2022/23 was similar across levels of socio-economic deprivation, with coverage slightly higher among those living in the most deprived areas for the earliest three reviews, but highest in the least deprived areas for 27-30 month review and in areas of medium deprivation for the 4-5 year review.

Background

All children in Scotland are offered a series of child health reviews between birth and starting school as part of the nationally agreed child health programme. Reviews are provided by Health Visitors. They include ongoing assessment of children’s growth, health, and development and wider family wellbeing. They offer an opportunity for provision of health promotion and parenting support, and also identify children and families who would benefit from additional ongoing services. It is important that all children receive the reviews that are offered. This helps to ensure that any problems are identified and support provided as quickly as possible, allowing children to thrive.

The ‘coverage’ achieved for a particular review in a year means the proportion of children becoming eligible for that review in the year (for example turning 6 weeks of age) that received their review, and had the result recorded in the national child health information system.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be in February 2025.