Child health pre-school review coverage
2024 to 2025

About this release

This annual release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides statistics on the coverage of child health reviews and vision screening offered to preschool children as part of the nationally agreed child health programme. The 'coverage' achieved for a particular review means the proportion of children becoming eligible for that review in the year (for example turning 6 weeks of age) that received their review, and had the result recorded in the national child health information system.

Statistics are shown by NHS board and council area of residence, deprivation level, sex and ethnicity. Information is provided for children becoming eligible for each of the reviews in 2002/03 (or later if the review has been added to the schedule more recently) to 2024/25.

Main points

• Of children becoming eligible for review in 2024/25, across all reviews, coverage was slightly improved or stable compared with the previous year, with the exception of vision screening which had fallen slightly.

Line chart showing coverage of Pre-school reviews from 2019/20 to 2024/25

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Coverage of pre-school reviews from 2019/20 to 2024/25

*Vision screening data is shown by the year the child became eligible for school entry (2024/25 translates to 2025)

• Coverage varies by NHS Board and review. It is generally high at the Health Visitor First Visit (majority of areas >95%), but there is greater variation for the 4-5 year review and pre-school vision screening (range 56% to 94% and 22% to 92% respectively).
• Coverage of reviews for children eligible in 2024/25 was generally similar across levels of socio-economic deprivation, but for the 4-5 year review it was higher in the most deprived areas (80%) compared to the least deprived areas (74%), whereas for vision screening coverage was lower in the most deprived areas (75%) compared to the least deprived (83%).

Background

All children in Scotland are offered a series of child health reviews between birth and starting school as part of the nationally agreed child health programme. Reviews are provided by Health Visitors, and pre-school vision screening by orthoptists. They include ongoing assessment of children’s growth, health, and development and wider family wellbeing. They offer an opportunity for provision of health promotion and parenting support, and also identify children and families who would benefit from additional ongoing services. It is important that all children receive the reviews that are offered. This helps to ensure that any problems are identified and support provided as quickly as possible, allowing children to thrive.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be in April 2027.