16 January 2026
By Ellie Haworth, Head of Children’s Services Transformation and Improvement, SCIE
Just before Christmas, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education announced free prescriptions, dental care and eye care for care leavers up to the age of 25, as well as an NHS job interview guarantee scheme and paid internships.
I have been reflecting on what the positive impact of these changes could be if organisations take robust accountability for implementing them and co-produce with care-experienced young people to ensure support is meaningful and accessible. I’ve also been reflecting on the signal they send about the shared responsibility across health, education and social care to support young people as they move into adulthood.
What the changes mean for care-experienced young people
Together, the changes are intended to increase opportunities and reduce inequality for care-experienced young people. In practical terms, they could mean improved access to preventative healthcare—and, thus, fewer crises—and reduced financial pressure at a key transition point into adulthood. The cross-department approach could mean better joined-up planning and clearer and shared accountability mechanisms, which, in turn, could address the fragmented and cliff-edge nature of some of the support that care-experienced young people encounter.
At SCIE, we welcome the changes as an important step forward in recognising and responding to the persistent inequalities faced by young people who have grown up in care. However, their impact will depend on how consistently they are implemented and how effectively young people are supported to access them. To truly promote opportunity and reduce structural disadvantage for care-experienced young people, changes must be made across all levels of the system.
Reducing inequality in practice
At an interpersonal and professional level, we can reduce inequality by advocating for the care-experienced young people we work with. This means recognising their particular needs, holding ambition for them, and working alongside them to realise their own ambitions.
In this case, this could mean professionals proactively informing care-experienced young people about their entitlement to free prescriptions, dental care and eye care, and supporting them to register with and remain engaged in services during periods of transition. It could also involve education, careers and health staff actively promoting the NHS job interview guarantee scheme and paid internships, and helping young people to prepare for and take up these opportunities.
Every day professional practice matters, and consistent, high-quality support can make a significant difference to outcomes.
Organisational accountability and co-production
At an organisational level, reducing inequality requires robust accountability. We must track activity, scrutinise outcomes and hold ourselves to the highest standards. Co-producing with care-experienced people is essential in this work. It enables organisations to identify gaps in services, understand what support young people value so that it is meaningful rather than symbolic, and share power within systems that have historically excluded their voices.
Structural and system-wide change
There is also a need to address inequality at a structural and system-wide level. This means explicitly recognising care experience as a form of systemic disadvantage and using data to identify and challenge patterns of inequality. National changes such as free access to eye care and dental services may appear small in isolation, but they are structural, universal and measurable. As such, they have the potential to create meaningful, population-level impact.
Intersectionality and equitable outcomes
Universal entitlements alone do not guarantee equitable impact. Care-experienced young people are not a homogenous group. Their experiences and outcomes are shaped by intersecting factors such as ethnicity, disability, religion and gender. Without attention to these differences, universal offers may benefit some young people more than others. For example, some young people may face practical barriers to attending appointments, experience mistrust of services, or need extra guidance to navigate complex systems.
Organisations will, therefore, need to consider how young people become aware of new offers and what additional support may be required to ensure benefits are realised in practice. In other words, ensuring equitable outcomes will require targeted support alongside universal provision, informed by robust data and ongoing co-production grounded in a wide range of lived experiences.
SCIE’s role
SCIE works with central government to support policy and system reform, and with organisations across health, education and social care to embed change into practice. In relation to these announcements, we can support organisations to interpret policy intent, implement new entitlements effectively, and evaluate whether they are making a meaningful difference for care-experienced young people. If you are interested in how SCIE can help you to identify, design and implement change for care-experienced children in your organisation, then please get in touch with us to talk about consultancy services.
Together, by focusing on meaningful implementation, accountability and lived experience, we can help ensure that these announcements translate into lasting, positive change for care-experienced young people.
As a not-for-profit charity, SCIE supports the development of innovative solutions to address challenges faced by children and families, helping ensure high quality, co-produced, ethical and evidence-based practice.
