'Transition: moving on well'--from paediatric to adult health care

Adolescence involves great social and psychosocial change, and young people with long-term health problems are inevitably at significant risk if they disengage with health services at this crucial time. Good transition services to facilitate the transfer from paediatric to adult health care are therefore essential to the well-being of these young adults. Transition: Moving on Well is a policy produced jointly by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health (2008) as part of the Every Child Matters programme. The policy stresses the importance of an early start to transition planning, the vital role played by coordinators, specific areas that should be discussed and the need for collaboration with young people and their families. The main drawback of the policy is that it necessitates higher levels of funding and staffing than are available; evidence from literature suggests that these resourcing shortfalls mean that charities still provide many of the transition services that should be coordinated by healthcare services. The result is that many young people receive no transition support until shortly before the transfer to adult services, meaning that the opportunity for them to engage with such services can be irretrievably lost.