School nurse intervention key to addressing childhood obesity says RCN
Published: 06 August 2008
The RCN has said that the early intervention of school nurses is key to addressing childhood obesity and has called on the Government to compel primary care trusts to address the unacceptable shortage of school nurses.
The RCN’s comments follow a conservative party warning that lack of school nurses threatened the success of the Department of Health’s recently announced child measurement programme. In this, parents of children who have been weighed and measured in English schools may automatically receive their child's results.
Chief Executive & General Secretary of the RCN, Dr. Peter Carter said:
“If we are going to get children onto the right track, if we are going to end this growing obesity problem, PCTs need to recruit the right numbers of school nurses who can identify unhealthy children from an early age and intervene accordingly”.
A 2007 census said that there were 3,162 nurses working in schools across England, but the RCN estimates that this number will need to double to properly deal with the issue of childhood obesity.