Good progress but child health concerns remain.

In his address to the conference, the Ministry of Health's chief adviser child and youth health, Pat Tuohy, stressed the importance of the government developing new ways of working with non-government organisations (NGOs) in order to build a strong family service sector. "A strong NGO sector is crucial to the delivery of community based health and social services," he said.

"Plunket and other NGOs can often reach people governments will never reach. Plunket has been innovative for 100 years, leading initiatives like hydatids testing for farm dogs, and legislation for fencing swimming pools and child car restraints," he said.

Although much progress had been made (eg the decrease in infant mortality rates over the last decades), child health concerns remained, in particular significant and worsening disparities between rich and poor, Maori and Pacific and European populations; static breast-feeding rates; the slowed fall in sudden infant death syndrome rates; more referrals for child protection; and poor identification of postnatal depression (PND).

Under the government's well child review, additional funding of $23.6 million over four years would be used to initiate a "ready for school" check and ensure art children received all eight "core" well child checks. Objectives of the review included identifying achievable outcomes and effective interventions; evaluating how well the current service reached high-need families and improved outcomes; and creating better linkages within health and across agencies. Key actions for the future were to promote positive parenting, identify and treat PND, and identify and address family violence.