An NHS leader has said the health service has a "professional and moral responsibility" to act to reduce child poverty - just weeks after shocking statistics showed how the North East has become the UK's new child poverty capital.
Figures from the End Child Poverty Coalition highlighted how our region was the only one in the country to see an increase in child poverty over the last year. In Newcastle 42% of children are growing up in poverty. On the back of the worrying data, Dame Jackie Daniel - chair of the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust - has reflected on how, as the city's biggest employer and an "anchor institution", the trust has to play a vital role in reducing this.
Dame Jackie said the figures had "stopped me in my tracks" adding: "We are sadly all too conscious of families and children who struggle financially – and especially with the impact of the cost of living crisis – but to think that more than 40% of the children in our communities are experiencing poverty is heart-breaking. These are children who are born here in our hospital and who will be cared for throughout their lives by our teams."
