Early years

This section presents information on the health of children aged 0 to 5 years.

Go to early years indicators

The indicators are designed to help commissioners and providers of health visiting services to assess the priorities and outcomes of the transformation of health visiting services.

You can see at a glance how your local area performs against key indicators and compare the data with other local authorities and nationally. Baseline and trend information are provided where available.

Breastfeeding indicators

These indicators show performance against a range of indicators describing demographic, breastfeeding behaviours and health outcome data for mothers and their children.

Supplementary indicators

Other indicators related to the health and wellbeing of children aged 0-5 years.

Supporting resources

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• PHE data and analysis tools
• Guidance to help healthcare professionals make decisions about the planning and provision of services using child and maternal health data and intelligence is available in the Child and maternal health data and intelligence: guide for health professionals
• A best start in life: cost-effective commissioning return on investment tool helps local commissioners provide cost-effective interventions for children aged up to 5 and pregnant women.

Breastfeeding

• A collection of indicators related to breastfeeding has been brought together on OHID’s Fingertips tool.
• Published statistics on breastfeeding, including prevalence at 6 to 8 weeks after birth are available together with guidance on how to submit aggregate data to the central system.
• PHE provided information to support commissioning of local infant feeding services.

Health visiting

• Published health visitor service delivery metrics are available together with guidance on how to submit aggregate data to the central system.
• PHE provided guidance on health visitor and school nurse commissioning in a service specification is for local authorities commissioning health visitors and school nurses, for public health services for children aged 0 to 19.

Unintentional injuries

• Narrative reports for local government on reducing unintentional injuries in and around the home among children under five years present local data alongside evidence.
• PHE also provided guidance on reducing unintentional injuries among children and young people which looks at action areas for local authorities and their partners to help develop injury prevention strategies for children and young people.