Health protection and age-related legislation.

Community children's nurse Debbie James has developed an innovative scheme to allow secondary school children to obtain health advice by texting her service using mobile phones. As well as general advice about spots and rubella immunization, Sister James is also receiving inquiries about children's legal rights that also have a health protection purpose, such how old a child has to be before owning a pet or have an alcoholic drink. This article looks at how the law seeks to protect children by incrementally giving them legal rights as they develop to mature adults and how legal awareness can help inform community health practitioners' advice to their child clients.