The government will introduce measures to better support young families, Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced, speaking at the Labour Conference in Liverpool today (30 September).
Cooper said: “I can announce we will bring back Sure Start health services into every family centre, reaching up to 1,000 family hubs over the next two years.”
Sure Start was wound down by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition that took office in 2010, after being set up by the Blair Government in which Cooper was a health minister in 1998.
Cooper also announced the Government would for the first time take “a public health approach to violence against women and girls, working with survivors, charities, local government, and the NHS to set out how to treat this like the disease that it is”.
Addressing the conference in Liverpool, Cooper said: “One of the biggest causes of ill health and harm for women, including in pregnancy, isn’t really treated on the NHS, and that is domestic abuse.”
The Secretary of State announced a roll out of close to £50m of support for new specialist referral services, through general practice, for women and men who are victims of domestic abuse.
She also announced that a champion for unpaid carers would be appointed.
There will be a legally binding fair pay agreement for care workers, and a social care workforce plan with career pathways and training.
The first national collective pension scheme for care workers will also be established, which she credited to campaigning by Unison.
Cooper opened her address by honouring Bessie Braddock, the Liverpool Labour MP who campaigned against poverty, championed women's health, drove ambulances during the war, and voted for the 1946 National Health Service Act.
She quoted Braddock's description of the Bill that led to the founding of the NHS as the biggest step forward ever proposed for the nation's health, and said that the NHS was Labour's greatest achievement and the country's biggest step towards equality and social justice.
She praised Prime Minister Andy Burnham's speech from the previous day and presenting Labour's new mission: bringing health and social care together in a National Care Service.
Baroness Casey's Commission on Social Care will report next year, and the service will be built “over time”.
Two years into the current government, she said that 12,000 more doctors, 14,000 more nurses and health visitors, 1,900 more midwives, over 8,000 more mental health workers, and millions more hospital, dental and GP appointments had been delivered.
