A number of children's rights, as stated by UNCRC are listed below...

• Community Based

• Ambulatory Care

• Inpatient Care

• Emergency Care

Please continue to column 2) 'What rights do children have?'

This learning package aims to help you revisit children's rights and apply them to nursing care in diverse healthcare environments. You will be prompted throughout with subheadings like 'Think about' or 'Look up' to add depth to your learning and draw upon your experience from previous placements.

The content of this package is applicable to all children's nurses and also to allied healthcare professionals who care for children and young people (CYP).

Please remember to scroll across the screen as you make your way through the package. There are seven columns in total. To maximise your educational benefit of this package please click on the three dots to the right hand side of each section and select 'Expand Post'.

One-bedroom flat

Women's prison

Three-bedroom house

Women's refuge

Mobile home - travelling families

All children, in any living situation, should have access to a Health Visitor (HV). HVs provide holistic support and advice to families.

Think about:

How do Health Visitors promote and safeguard the following children's rights in the home setting...

1. Best Possible Health? 

2. Right to a standard of living that meets their physical and social needs?

3. Protected from Harm?

Providing community-based healthcare to children from travelling families can be challenging, as they may move around the country frequently and therefore are less likely to receive continuity of care from the same professionals.

Think about:

How can children's community nurses ensure that children of travelling families receive the best possible healthcare?

Think about:
How does an Outpatient department or clinic support the patient's right to information about their healthcare?

Right to be protected from harm and right to best possible health...
Outpatient nursing staff, specialist nurses and treating Consultants at attentive to episodes of care whereby the patient 'did not attend' for their appointment(s). Recurring failure to engage with services can be an indication of a safeguarding issue. In such circumstances, all of the healthcare professionals listed above have a duty to inform the safeguarding team and/or contact social services directly.

Effective information sharing between professionals is essential for earliest identification and assessment with prompt implementation of service provision necessary to meet the needs of the child.

Think about:

How does a safeguarding referral support the child's right? You may want to consider which rights this process is protecting.

Think about:
Is your GP service child friendly?
How could a GP service encourage children and young people to give feedback on the care they receive?


Adolescent girls are more likely to access their GP surgery than their male counterparts, as they their needs change for example: options for contraception.

Applications such as 'eConsults' were launched during the COVID 19 pandemic to allow the public to continue accessing their primary healthcare service, whilst keeping patients at home as much as possible (due to lockdown restrictions). When these applications were initially launched, adolescents they were not able to complete their own application - as the form stated you must be 18 years old to do this. This created a barrier to young people (<18years) accessing primary care and therefore put their health and wellbeing at risk. This was clearly problematic for young people who did not feel comfortable disclosing health concerns to their care giver/responsible adult.

Think about:

In this scenario, which Rights were not being upheld?

How do you think young people felt when they were unable to independently access primary care through eConsults?

Health and social inequalities - What social barriers might some families encounter that could prevent them accessing the 'eConsults' application?

How would you advise the GP surgery to accommodate for these families?

Many basic human rights are, of course, applicable to children, as well as those listed by UNCRC.

The World health Organisation (WHO) state that access:

'to pain management is a fundamental human right'.

Think about:
Pain is a complex concept but as a CYP nurse, how would you advocate for your patient's pain needs to uphold their human right stated above?

The inpatient admission of a patient can put them at risk of hospital-acquired infections as well as negative implications on their emotional psychological and social health.

The WHO states that:

'children have the right to enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health'.

Think about:
What can be put in place by nursing staff in order to minimise negative inpatient-associated affects on the health and wellbeing of CYP? ie. infection control, family centered care etc.

How could a CYP ward nurse ensure that patients with long-term admissions continue to have access to their right to education?

The need for admission to an intensive care unit can be the result of an emergency or planned post-operative care, for example. Similar to the previous section on 'inpatient wards', intensive care poses challenges to critically unwell patients.

Think about:
In terms of tissue viability, how will you protect your critically unwell patient from unnecessary harm?

In intensive care settings, visiting privileges are limited.
With this in mind, how do you support the CYP's right to not be separated from their parents against their will?

Caring for mentally disturbed or distressed adolescents in CED can be a complex matter. This patient group may be at risk to themselves or (rarely) to other patients.

Think about:
You are a CED nurse caring for an adolescent with erratic behaviour caused by a mental health disorder. How can you protect the patient from harming themselves?

(consider the following: staff needed to maintain level of supervision the patient requires, who is on hand at the hospital to aid in security matters? Who would you escalate your concerns to? CAMHS? Where would you ideally nurse your patient?)

It is commonplace for nursing staff to search the belongings of a patient who has self-harmed or plans to harm themselves. As the nurse, how could you carry this out whilst upholding the patients rights?

Think about:

How does neuro-rehabilitation promote C&YPs right to a full life with dignity?
How does rehabilitation promote children's right to life?

A few examples of the reasons CYP may attend are:

• fasting bloods

• allergy testing

• regular intravenous infusions for metabolic conditions or crohns disease

• sleep studies

Think about:

CIU assists in releasing bed capacity in hospitals. By providing care in an outpatient setting, how does this service support children's rights to access education?

How does this service support children with disabilities to live a full life with dignity?

What kind of unnecessary harm does this service prevent children from experiencing - in terms of preventing the need for admission into an inpatient bed?

When a health professional is seeing and treating adolescents/young people, a HEADSS assessment should be completed. This can be done formally or informally. This assessment can be completed with the patient in the absence of their carer(s). Maintaining their privacy and dignity in this way means that this is often the best way to capture the most accurate and truthful answers.

Think about:
How does the HEADSS assessment screen for potential child abduction - including human trafficking?

• To revisit children's rights.
• To provide an overview of how nurses in diverse environments work with CYP and their families to prioritise their rights.

• Demonstrate knowledge of children's rights.
• Identify how processes in various diverse environments are put in place to safeguard children's rights.
• Describe the effects that can be had on CYP when their rights are not met.

Think about:

How might this service support the following rights of children:

• Right to a full life with dignity?

• Right to play?

• Right to an identity?