After the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots law, this conference offered the opportunity to explore how NHS Scotland has responded to its new legal duties to uphold children’s rights across all services and settings.  

The event, with over 400 participants throughout the conference, showcased practical examples of right-based approaches in action from clinical practice to strategic planning. Showing across four sessions how healthcare services are embedding the principles of dignity, participation, equity and accountability into everyday decision-making.  

Beginning with a session to give participants a scope of what it means to apply a rights-based approach to children’s care, the conference then continued with three more sessions delving deeper into how to best uphold children’s rights across services.  

Participation in Practice – Listening on What Babies, Children and Young People Say 

Babies, children and young people have the right to be involved in their health - which is not always easy, especially with babies and very young children. NHS Grampian shared their work on babies’ rights, showing that even though there are challenges, even the youngest can shape the way children are cared for. Other guest speakers included the Young Advisors, who are actively involved in shaping service design for babies, children and young people.  

Upholding Children’s Rights Across Services – Shared Responsibility 

This session focussed on the fact, that Children’s Rights are not only to be upheld by services that are specifically for children. All NHS services share this responsibility, and many are ready and willing to take on this responsibility. It shows, among other things, in small changes across the services, such as asking staff if they work with families, acknowledging that the treatment of for example a parent, can directly impact a child or young person and this means that staff will have to know how to best support them as well as their patient.  

Driving-Change – Leadership, Learning and System-Wide Impact 

The last session revolved around how to sustain a culture of children’s rights across the healthcare system. It explored how a right-based approach was embedded, and can continue to be embedded, with the help of toolkits, feedback and innovation. They explored a case study in which the marker of ‘did not attend’ was replaced by ‘was not brought’ letters, for appointments made for babies, children and young people, who would not be able to attend an appointment on their own. With three phases, those letters offered compassion and support for the families who received them, so that all babies, children and young people could get the care they needed to the conditions that were the best for them and their families.  

In every session, it was evident that the speakers were passionate about the changes that they had brought about or planned to bring to the NHS to uphold the new duties under the UNCRC Incorporation Act 2024. While they did highlight what they had already achieved, they also acknowledged that it was a slow process, and that there was still work to be done.  

It was exciting to attend such an informative event. It is commendable to see such a commitment to embedding and upholding children’s rights by the NHS Scotland across all of their services and health boards.  

NHS Learning Scotland are expected to release further information and resources from the event in the coming weeks.