How do we value our children today? as reflected by children's health, health care and policy?

SUMMARY. The importance of children in their own right and of their healthy development for the health of society, have been affirmed at an international level by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 and by the Children Act 1989 in the United Kingdom. In the UK fifteen years ago, the report of the Court Committee set out a framework for Child Health Services based on the same recognition of the value of children. This paper describes how in spite of the far-reaching recommendations made by the Court Committee, the health of children in this country is far from satisfactory; how health policy and services have failed to meet their health care needs; and how other recent legislation such as the NHS and Community Care Act may well lead to further difficulties in working for the best interests of the child.