Delivery of child health services in Indigenous communities: implications for the federal government's emergency, intervention in the Northern Territory

Objectives: To describe delivery of child health services in Australian Aboriginal communities, and to identify gaps in services required to improve the health of Aboriginal children. Design: Cross-sectional baseline audit for a quality improvement intervention. Setting and participants: 297 children aged at least 3 months and under 5 years in 11 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, Far West New South Wales and Western Australia in 2006. Main outcome measures: Adherence to guideline-scheduled services including clinical examinations, brief interventions or advice on health-related behaviour and risks, and enquiry regarding social conditions; and recorded follow-up of identified problems. Results: Documentation of delivery of specific clinical examinations (26%-80%) was relatively good, but was poorer for brief interventions or advice on health-rotated behaviour and risks (5%-36%) and enquiry regarding social conditions (3%-11%). Compared with children in Far West NSW and WA, those attending NT centres were significantly more likely to have a record of growth faltering, underweight, chronic ear disease, anaemia, or chronic respiratory disease (P < 0.005). Only 11%-13% of children with identified social problems had an assessment report on file. An action plan was documented for 22% of children with growth faltering and 13% with chronic ear disease; 43% of children with chronic respiratory disease and 31% with developmental delay had an assessment report on file. Conclusion: Existing systems are not providing for adequate follow-up of identified medical and social problems for children living in remote Aboriginal communities; development of systems for immediate and longer-term sustainable responses to these problems should be a priority. Without effective systems for follow-up, screening children for disease and adverse social circumstances will result in little or no benefit.