GPs to be notified when children become homeless under new Government strategy

Councils will be obliged to inform GPs when a child is made homeless, the Government has announced. 

The new legal duty revealed yesterday by the Government as part of its Child Poverty Strategy compels councils to notify GPs, schools and health visitors to ensure ‘a more joined up approach’ to supporting children living in temporary accommodation.  

The duty will be created as part of an amendment to Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is currently being considered by the House of Lords. 

The Government said: ‘A new legal duty will also be introduced for councils to notify schools, health visitors, and GPs when a child is placed in temporary accommodation, so no child is left without support.   

‘This enables health and education providers to deliver a more joined up approach to support children experiencing homelessness.’ 

It also said it would ‘work with the NHS to end the practice of mothers with newborns being discharged to B&Bs or other forms of unsuitable housing’. 

As of June 2025, 172,420 children live in temporary accommodation in England – a record high. And 84,240 households in temporary accommodation include children, 7.5% more than in June 2024. 

Overall, the Government claims its strategy will lift 550,000 children out of poverty by the end of the current Parliament – 450,000 of whom owing to the decision last month’s Autumn Budget to scrap the two-child benefit limit. 

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said ‘the cost of doing nothing’ on child poverty was ‘too high’. 

He said: ‘Every child deserves the best possible start in life, with their future no longer determined by the circumstances of their birth.

‘Yet too many children are growing up in poverty, held back from getting on in life, and too many families are struggling without the basics: a secure home, warm meals, and the support they need to make ends meet.’

Meanwhile, Education Select Committee chair Helen Hayes and Work and Pensions Select Committee chair Debbie Abrahams said in a joint statement they welcomed the strategy and would ‘set out the scope for our joint enquiry’ on tackling child poverty in the ‘next few weeks’.

They said: ‘The long-awaited publication of the Child Poverty strategy brings these measures together and describes a cross-Governmental approach on three workstreams – increasing the incomes of low-income families, driving down the costs of essentials, and strengthening local support – as we work to tackle and ultimately eliminate child poverty.

‘The strategy’s new commitments, for example, to limiting the time families with children spend in temporary accommodation are also welcome.’

‘However, we note the lack of reduction targets against which to monitor, review and evaluate the strategy’, they added.

Earlier this year, an analysis of the National Child Mortality Database found child deaths in England had risen once more after a temporary drop during the Covid-19 pandemic. The data also highlighted that existing healthcare inequalities were higher than before or during the pandemic.