Family hubs host self-weigh baby clinics in Barking & Dagenham

From 2024, family hubs and library sites in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham have begun running all-day parent-led baby weighing stations, so parents can check their child’s growth between routine health visitor reviews while using the same calibrated scales and charts normally found in NHS child health clinics.

North East London NHS Foundation Trust’s child health clinics page for Barking and Dagenham, updated in 2025, now lists self-weigh facilities at the Child and Family Centre on Axe Street in Barking from 09:00 to 16:00 on four weekdays, at Marks Gate Community Hub in Dagenham from 09:00 to 16:00 Monday to Friday, and at Dagenham Library between 13:00 and 15:00 on Mondays.

A Barking and Dagenham Family Hubs timetable for the east of the borough covering April to August 2024 shows parent-led weighing set alongside infant feeding support, sensory rooms and stay-and-play sessions at Dagenham Learning Centre, meaning a family arriving to weigh a baby can often combine this with activities for older siblings or speak to staff about money and housing support in the same building.

Across the area, the council’s Start for Life and OurHubsBD website lists 16 community and family hubs, all promoted as one-stop locations where families can access pregnancy, birth and pre-school support alongside 0–19 health visiting and school nursing services, indicating that the weighing stations are being layered onto an existing neighbourhood network rather than offered as stand-alone clinics.

In July 2025, a House of Commons debate on giving every child the best start in life and a government announcement reported in national media confirmed plans for up to 1,000 Best Start Family Hubs across England by 2028, backed by a £500 million programme aimed at bringing health, education and social care support together in single neighbourhood centres.

National NHS guidance on services and support for parents stresses that self-weighing does not replace scheduled health visitor checks at around 10 days, 6 to 8 weeks, 1 year and 2 years, so the Barking and Dagenham model still combines home visits and booked child health clinics with drop-in library and hub sessions for families who simply want reassurance about a baby’s weight between those milestones.

For parents managing shift work, caring for older children or living on tight budgets, having scales available for up to seven hours a day at nearby hubs and libraries reduces the need to travel to health centres at fixed times, potentially narrowing gaps between families who can easily attend traditional daytime clinics and those who would otherwise miss checks altogether.

21 November 2025 13:11 By London Health News Desk