The First 1,000 Days of a Child’s Life

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 13 October 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:08, 13 October 2020

Thank you, Llywydd. Of course, I agree with Lynne Neagle about the importance of those first 1,000 days, when children's brains are growing faster than they will at any other time in their lives, and when those very important attachments are being laid down that will form the basis of emotional well-being over the rest of their lifetime. As Lynne Neagle will know, in the early days of coronavirus there were disruptions to the sorts of services families and children could rely upon, both because staff themselves were falling ill as a result of coronavirus and because health visitors, for example, had to be redirected to helping even more urgent parts of the health service. The good news is that all health visitors have now been repatriated, and those services that matter so much in the lives of those young children are being restored. They're not 100 per cent back to where they were before, because coronavirus hasn't gone away. But nevertheless, the efforts that are needed, in the way that Lynne Neagle has set out, I know are well understood and are being acted upon in our social services and in our health services. And, Llywydd, there are still some remarkable success stories, considering the pressures that everybody has been under. Immunisation rates in Wales, during the first three months of this financial year—so, the three months when the coronavirus crisis was at its greatest—the three-dose, six-in-one vaccine for infants went above 95 per cent during that quarter and the MMR first dose for two-year-olds increased to above 95 per cent. So, despite all the difficulties that people were facing, and we know that people were reluctant sometimes to come forward for treatments in that very difficult period, there is evidence of the continuing success of services for young people in those first 1,000 days.