The document Modernising health and social services—priority guidance outlines the policy for health and social services to 2002.1 It is divided into four sections entitled “Where are we heading?”, “How we get there”, “What needs to be done”, and “How will it work?” It is hard to disagree with a wish list to reduce inequalities in health, especially where it is backed by £17.7bn extra for the NHS.

However, several important questions must be asked:

• To what extent can health inequalities be influenced by health or social service interventions?

• To what extent are the effects of disadvantage reversible by creating a more favourable climate in health and social services?

• Are the timescales realistic in terms of generating necessary changes in training and local programmes?

• Are generations rather than years the timescale to achieve fully some of the targets?

• Will the inertia both in the services and in the behaviour of individual citizens prove too great a challenge?

The officers of the Sodom and Gomorrah2 Health Authority may also have been given targets and however lofty their intentions, they were not achieved. Are we being set up for a similar fate? Should we plead for more time as in Sodom and Gomorrah?

The circular covers the whole range of services for all age groups. In this commentary, I will confine discussion to those targets that relate to children.