We encourage submissions that support the conference theme of improving health outcomes for babies, children and families through health visiting (or integrated working involving health visiting) – focused on prevention and early intervention during the preconception period, pregnancy, and early parenthood (0-5 years).

Submissions are open to individuals and teams, including researchers, educators and clinicians who have led work in the UK that aligns with our conference theme. Non-UK entrants will also be considered where there is demonstrable transferable learning.

Entrants must be able to demonstrate their work has made an important improvement in promoting, improving and protecting the health of babies, young children and families.

Examples might include initiatives to:

• Tackle key public health priorities to improve health outcomes for babies, children and families.
• Improve access, experience and outcomes – particularly for individuals and groups who do not currently experience easy access to services and consequently often experience the worst health outcomes.
• Develop evidence-driven health visiting service models to deliver safe and effective care – including initiatives that tackle specific public health priorities, or workforce initiatives to improve health visiting capacity, capability, wellbeing and career progression.

If you are resubmitting a project or innovation that you have entered in previous years, please ensure you show the changes made since your last submission.

Conference themes may include, but are not limited to,  the current priority public health topics for health visiting:

• Transition to parenthood, including preconception care
• Breastfeeding
• Perinatal mental health
• Infant and child mental health
• Healthy nutrition, physical activity, and healthy weight
• Managing minor illnesses, building health literacy and prevention of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
• Reducing unintentional injuries
• The uptake of immunisations
• Improving oral health
• Child development 0-5 years
• Sleep
• Children with developmental disorders, disabilities and complex health needs
• Tobacco, alcohol and substance misuse
• Healthy couple relationships
• Young parents
• Strengthening the health visiting workforce

There is no fee for making a submission. However, if your submission is accepted, the presenting author will be required to attend the conference in-person and pay the discounted speaker registration fee that applies to them. Successful entrants will receive a special 25% discount on their conference ticket. If your organisation is paying for your ticket, please ensure you have their approval prior to submitting your abstract.

To qualify for the discounted speaker rate, you will need to ensure the conference booking form is completed by 7 November 2024 and payment is made by 13 December 2024. Successful entrants are responsible for their own travel and accommodation expenses.

Please note that our conference ticket booking system is not yet live – so please hold the date in your diary – Thursday 8 May 2025, King’s House Conference Centre in Manchester. If your organisation is funding your ticket – please ensure you have their approval prior to submitting an abstract.

See our conference and events FAQs for more information.

Abstract format:

• Title: No more than 20 words.
• Abstract Summary: No longer than 600 words.
• Key references to be included (note: references will not be included in the wordcount limit).
• All abstracts must be written in English, free from jargon. Any abbreviations should be spelt out in full.

The abstract must include:

• Your full name, designation and contact details.
• Your preference to be considered for:
  • Oral presentation (keynote/ concurrent session)
  • Oral breakout presentation

The format of your abstract should be as follows:

• Background
• Aim
• Methods
• Results/outcomes – with demonstrable impact applicable to the field of health visiting
• Conclusions and recommendations.

All submissions will be peer reviewed by the iHV conference panel, with two stages of assessment:

Stage one

All entrants will be assessed for suitability against the following criteria:

• Relevant: Alignment to conference themes of improving health outcomes for babies, children and families and strengthening health visiting; applicable to all 4 nations of the UK.
• Presentation: Clearly written in English, free from jargon, abbreviations are written in full, does not exceed the word limit and supported by current references.
• Conflict of interest: The abstract is not submitted by a commercial organisation looking to promote a product for commercial gain.

Stage two

If the submission is accepted at stage 1, it will be assessed for suitability against the following criteria:

• Innovation: Originality of the idea. Builds new knowledge/ addresses gaps in research and practice.
• Transferable: Clear description of the initiative/ research, what it involves and why it is needed, with ideas that could be adapted for use in other organisations.
• Engagement: Clear evidence of engagement with target population, with consultation/co-production used to develop the initiative.
• Evidence-driven: Makes use of recognised best evidence-based practice, research, and/or national standards that may be applicable.
• Effectiveness: Evidence of impact – data of improving access, experience and health outcomes for babies, children and families; or evidence of positive impact on the health visiting workforce (as applicable).
• Leadership: evidence of health visiting leadership of the initiative as well as dissemination to support wider system learning.
• Capability, knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours: Supports the principles of health visiting and enhances the capabilities of health visitors, building upon the proficiencies achieved in their SCPHN education.
• Health equity and inequalities: Supports enhancement of knowledge, skills, and attitudes in working inclusively and effectively with key groups at high risk of health inequities and inequalities.

All entrants will be provided with feedback from the review panel. If you would like to discuss the feedback further, please contact [email protected].

Our call for abstracts receives high volumes of submissions, with limited speaker slots. Allocation will depend on scoring and topic selection (for example, we might receive multiple high scoring submissions for a popular topic and can’t include them all). If we are unable to include your work in our conference agenda, we may contact you about being on our reserve list for presenting or featuring your proposed content in our other iHV work. And remember if you aren’t successful this time you can still join the conference as a delegate and submit your work for a future event. We hope you can join us.

Please submit your abstract via this online form:.

Abstract Submissions