Bed poverty: Effects on child health—and the doctor’s role

As parliament continues to debate welfare reform and the two child benefit cap, thousands of children in the UK don’t have their own bed because their families can’t afford it. It’s a hidden public health crisis, writes Sally Howard , that doctors can help to solve “I have only recently thought to ask about it,” says Josh Meek, a GP partner working in a deprived region of Sheffield, speaking of patients’ sleeping arrangements. Published in September 2024, a report by the children’s charity Buttle UK on the state of child poverty highlighted the growing crisis of bed poverty: children going without beds because their families cannot afford them.1 This is an important concern, says its chief executive, Joseph Howes, because research shows that sleep has an important role in brain development and that children who lose as little as one hour of sleep a night can lose up …