Publications by authors named "H Melanie Bedford"
Background: The health visiting service in England leads the government's Healthy Child Programme (HCP) for children under five years. Local authorities and their provider partners deliver this service differently across England.
Objective: To describe local authority variation in the delivery of health visiting to children under five years in England (2018-2020).
Health visiting in England is a universal service that aims to promote the healthy development of children aged under five years and safeguard their welfare. We consulted stakeholders about their priorities for research into health visiting and also used these consultations and a literature review to generate a logic model. Parents wanted research to explore how health visiting teams can provide a caring, responsive, accessible service (the mechanisms of change).
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- A mixed methods evaluation was conducted to assess a digital call-and-recall tool aimed at improving the timely receipt and equity of MMR and DTaP/IPV vaccinations in North East London, focusing on children eligible from January 2019 to January 2024.
- The findings showed a 5.3% increase in timely first MMR vaccinations (from 77.7% to 81.8%), while DTaP/IPV saw a smaller increase of 0.9%. However, no significant change in inequality was observed.
- Users found the tool helpful for recall but noted challenges such as staff dynamics and unrealistic national targets that hindered its consistent application; further support is needed to maintain improvements.
Background: The health visiting service in UK promotes the health and wellbeing of families with young children and comprises a universal offer (three mandated contacts between birth and 12 months) and additional contacts based on need. We aimed to understand how the level of health visiting support received varies by family characteristics.
Methods: Using the Community Services Data Set linked to Hospital Episode Statistics, we identified 52 555 children in 10 local authorities with complete health visiting data for 12 months between April 2016 and March 2020.
Objective: Childhood vaccine uptake in the United Kingdom (UK) is sub-optimal leading to outbreaks of preventable diseases. We aimed to explore UK parents' perspectives on why some children are unvaccinated or vaccinated late.
Methods: We undertook a mixed-methods, co-production study involving a survey using a questionnaire followed by focus groups.