Anne M Grant, MB ChB DCCH, Community Child Health Department, Consultant Paediatrician, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, 10 Chalmers Crescent, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH91TS, United Kingdom, 0131 536 0470, anne.grant@luht.scot.nhs.uk

Over the past decade, evidence has been gathering which highlights the dire inequalities in health care and ultimate health outcomes for children and young people whose circumstances dictate that they should become looked after and accommodated by the local authorities (in care)because they can no longer live with their families at home. A major child health initiative in Scotland,the Residential Care Health Project, has been addressing these issues in partnership with Social Services. In this session, data from the project will be presented, including evidence of the health profiles and healthcare needs of the population of children and young people, also data regarding expressed views and health training needs of residential care practitioners. Resources which have been developed to support staff will be discussed, including the role of the 'health link workers' in units and the concept of the 'health promoting unit'. These statistics will form the basis for discussion around how services for this very vulnerable group have been redesigned and improved, including changes in strategy and management necessary to underpin sustainability and to ensure that these improvements apply from the time that the children first enter the care system.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will develop a good understanding of the challenges of delivering healthcare to young people in the care system
• Participants will understand more fully the health problems of the children and the underlying reasons for these from the Residential care health Project statistics
• We shall discuss how it is possible to create a responsive, flexible service, and how innovative developments have helped this
• The importance of joined up working with other agencies will be central to the presentation
• The concept of helping children to better health by supporting those directly involved with them will be analysed
• participants will be able to develop the principles described in their own practice, as they are applicable to other hard to reach and excluded groups of society

Keywords: Pediatrics, Health Care Delivery

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.