The Government's ‘fragmented' approach to children's health is damaging the nation, paediatricians have warned.

A new report from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said children's health was 'suffering at the hands of a disjointed approach from central Government'.

The RCPCH said its greatest areas for concern was the ‘deepening public health cuts,' which have worsened in the last year.

Public health spending is more than 5% lower in 2017/18 compared with 2013/14.

Chairman of the Local Government Association's community wellbeing board, Cllr Izzi Seccombe, said: ‘Councils have long-warned that unless more decisive action is taken, both individually and through targeted initiatives, the potential consequences of the impact on children's health later in life could be devastating.

‘Evidence shows that intervening in the first 1,000 days of a child's life can make a difference across their lifetime.

‘But with council's public health grant funding being cut by £531m between 2015/16 and 2019/20 and councils facing a £2bn funding gap to children's services by 2020, it is making that task harder.'