The Healthy Child Programme (HCP) [1] focuses on early life stages. It is the NHS ‘s preventative health visiting service, providing families with a programme of screening, immunisation, health and development reviews, supplemented by advice around health, wellbeing and parenting – for children and families to achieve their optimum health and wellbeing. The HCP’s universal reach provides an invaluable opportunity to identify families that are in need of additional support and children who are at risk of poor outcomes, at a crucial stage in life. A new model for health-visiting services is currently being introduced, which will strengthen the provision of HCP across England. The model will bring improved access and time with families, providing services where it best suits the family – at home, in health settings including GP surgeries, in Sure Start Children’s Centre as well as other non-traditional settings. From October 2015, certain universal elements of HCP have also been transferred from NHS England to local authorities for 0–5s public-health services [2].