22nd July 2021
iHV publishes its response to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) online consultation on Draft standards for post-registration nursing including Specialist Community Public Health Nursing – health visiting.
We welcome the development of proficiencies specific to the three SCPHN fields of health visiting, school nursing and occupational health nursing. We believe that this is an important strengthening of the regulatory status of health visiting so that the public can have assurances of what can be expected of a SCPHN health visitor. We also set out some additional recommendations for enhancements of the draft proficiencies themselves.
We believe that the proposed new standards provide a timely opportunity to re-envision health visiting and Specialist Community Public Health Nursing. We are committed to build on the strength of evidence in support of the vital contribution SCPHN health visitors make to improving the health and life chances of people across the life-course from its earliest days in their families, communities where they live, learn and work at a time of widening inequalities and persistent as well as new public health challenges.
We strongly encourage all health visitors and others with an interest in child and family public health to take the opportunity to make their own responses to the NMC consultation and we hope that, by publishing our response, this will assist health visitors and others to consider their own responses to the consultation. The closing date for responses to the consultation is 2 August 2021.
Please also see our Voices Blog on ‘Future Health Visiting’ – summarising the key issues.
