County launches children’s health passport

Herefordshire Council is one of the first authorities in the country to launch a new health passport for looked after children. The passport will be used to keep together important medical and historical information which the child can take with them and pass on to their carer.

With significant input from children and young people, and sponsorship from the Children's Bureau, each looked after child in Herefordshire will receive their own personalised health passport designed to follow their development through care and beyond. It is a way of ensuring that children in care have information about their childhood illnesses such as chickenpox, history of inoculations, hearing and eye tests, allergies and other medical issues.

Maintaining and updating the medical and personal information will be the responsibility of the carer, but the passport will move around with the child providing essential information for the child's future carers too.

A breakfast launch of the new health passport drew over 60 people to Hinton Community Community Centre last week.

Festive balloons, hot blueberry pancakes, banana muffins and organic muesli with fresh fruit were among the attractions and the room buzzed with appreciative comments from social workers, foster carers and others who work with children and young people in Herefordshire.

The food and festivities were prepared by some of the young people who have been attending the popular accredited course, Care2Cook.

Councillor Jenny Hyde, cabinet member for children and young people, said: "I thoroughly enjoyed attending the launch of this very important scheme. It's a real pleasure to be part of so much positive work and to learn about all the other exciting activities our children have been involved in. I'm so proud of them all."

The passport has been warmly welcomed by young people and professionals alike.

"I expect the passport to become a key working document for carers, and a valuable source of personal information for our young people in later life," said Rebecca Plato, fostering manager who has developed the passport with the county's nurse for looked after children, Anna Cassin.

"Many of our children have lived in a number of different places which can make it difficult for them to keep track of when and where they were during certain times in their lives," she continued.

"The transfer of information has traditionally been form-based, but the new health passport will be a great way of keeping everything together in an easy to use format."

Herefordshire Council is one of the first in the county to embark on this scheme which has already attracted a lot of attention nationally.