Infant Mortality: Temporary Accommodation
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in child mortality rates among children living in temporary accommodation in England in each of the last six years; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce health risks and prevent avoidable deaths among those children.
Answered by Mrs Sharon Hodgson
The Department is building on the ambitious action set out in our 10-Year Health Plan, by working across-Government to support children in temporary accommodation. We will introduce a clinical code for children in temporary accommodation, ensuring these families are proactively contacted by health services, and ending the practice of discharging newborn babies into bed and breakfasts or other unsuitable shared accommodation.
In the refreshed guidance for the Healthy Child Programme, published in February 2026, we state that health visitors should prioritise arranging a visit as soon as possible to families known to have transferred into temporary accommodation.
The Department is considering the recommendations set out in the recently published Child Mortality in Temporary Accommodation Report, and taking forward actions, some of which are already in policy development. The report is available at the following link:
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