How your membership donation supports our work as the independent voice and professional body for health visiting:
The iHV is a charity run by health visitors for health visitors – established to be a centre of excellence and national “voice” for the profession. We do not receive any direct government funding for our core business and can only continue our work by income generating ourselves – your membership support is essential so we can continue to be an independent voice and professional body for health visiting.
Thanks to your generous support, we can advocate for the profession in a number of ways – through our written submissions to numerous national consultations, publications and journal papers. We are also engaged in many research projects, practice innovations, sector-led improvement initiatives, and the development of training to support your work. We listen to our members who have told us in our annual survey how much they value the work that we do at the iHV, and the support that this provides for their practice, as well as “hope” for the future of health visiting.
Here are some examples of how we have used our members’ generous membership donations over the last four years:
Our successes (see our annual reports for more details)
- Just days into the pandemic in March 2020, the iHV stepped up and provided a powerful continuous voice for babies, children, families and health visiting who were largely overlooked in the pandemic response. We produced a wealth of resources and advice for families and health visiting during the pandemic. Through our efforts, the redeployment of health visitors was stopped, the needs of vulnerable babies and young children were recognised, and guidance on the use of virtual contacts was changed to protect them.
- Since June 2023, we have been involved in three rounds of questions and submitted the key witness statement for health visiting for the COVID-19 Public Inquiry Module 3 which will be heard later in 2024.
- We have provided numerous written submissions to national consultations on child and family health. Our work to support the safe implementation of the Working Together guidance and prevent role drift away from preventative public health is ongoing.
- Raising the profile of health visiting in the media and galvanising support from high-profile individuals and partner organisations (including HRH The Princess of Wales), with regular television, radio and print media interviews, and speaking engagements at influential events and roundtables.
- To support better understanding of health visiting, we have produced short films about health visiting (including “Health Visiting in Your Community” and “Can you see my baby? Health visitors prevent emergencies”), and infographics on “Who are health visitors and what do they do?” for all UK nations.
- Working with the NMC on health visiting standards, regulation and Advanced Practice – we are delighted to see their recent announcement of plans to protect the title “health visitor” which we have lobbied hard to secure.
- Working with Team CNO and government departments on “Conditions for Success” to strengthen health visiting and support the implementation of the NHS Long-Term workforce plan – we are also increasing our support for the devolved UK nations as our membership grows.
- Developing the iHV Career Pathway for health visiting and supporting regions to improve Student HV recruitment, education placements and retention .
- Behind the scenes, we have worked with local authorities and prevented some severe service cuts that were planned in some areas. Reduced budgets are an ongoing concern, and we will continue to challenge dangerous cuts to health visiting and call for investment at every opportunity to rebuild the workforce and end the postcode lottery that we see across the UK.
Increasing our iHV member benefits, with many extra benefits introduced since the beginning of 2020:
- iHV Insights webinars launched in 2020 – free for iHV members, including access to recordings and resources to support your learning and revalidation in line with the new NMC Standards of proficiency for SCPHN.
- Growing library of iHV evidence-based resources, digital toolkits, e-learning, factographics, Good Practice Points and GPP Xtras to support members’ continuous professional development and revalidation.
- Launched a range of regular Member Networking events in 2020 and our SEND Special Interest Group in 2023 which help members to connect with each other.
- Established the iHV Health Visitor Advisory Forum in 2021, with face-to-face and online meetings to help shape national health visiting policy and inform our work at the iHV – alongside standalone roundtables and surveys for all members to influence national policy.
- Launched iHV Podcasts in 2022.
- Launched iHV Student health visitor award and student health visitor section of iHV website in 2023.
- Launched iHV LEARN digital learning platform – with further growth planned in the years ahead.
- Highly subsidised tickets for members at iHV conferences and reduced fees for all iHV training programmes.
- Opportunities for members to access free iHV training developed through numerous iHV projects, and support co-production of new training programmes.
