23rd August 2021
iHV welcomes a letter from the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals for Children (NNDHP) sent to Hampshire County Council as part of their consultation, outlining its concerns regarding the proposed reductions in Hampshire’s Health Visiting and School Nurse services.
NNDHP supports the arguments that the joint letter from the iHV and the School and Public Nursing Health Association (SAPHNA) sent (25 June 2021) to Hampshire County Council made without qualification, and particularly the risk to the Council’s safeguarding responsibilities and the undermining of the healthy child programme.
NNDHP’s letter states:
“Babies whose parents find it difficult to provide all the love, attention and appropriate care that they need do not have a voice to describe when things are not going well for them. Health visitors provide that independent voice. This is a valuable in two ways because they not only provide help and support to the family in a direct fashion, but they also flag up the need for other services to help that otherwise would not get to know. If this function is reduced, or lost, then the likelihood is that the family will then present later in the child’s life in crisis or worse, and will cost the system a lot more to try and put matters right, after the damage has become embedded as adverse child events.”
