30th September 2026
Alongside many other organisations working across child and family health and the earliest years of life, we welcome the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care’s renewed commitment today to prioritise women, babies and families, and her ambition to give every child the best start in life. Her recognition that “any ambition to transform our NHS has to start at the very beginning of life” is both welcome and long overdue.
We also share the Secretary of State’s concerns that there are rising levels of need in our communities, with more children experiencing obesity, more young people facing mental health challenges, fragmented neonatal and postnatal care, and growing pressures across the health system. Maintaining the status quo is failing millions of babies, children and families across the country and will cripple the public purse as expenditure on late intervention continues to spiral out of control. Today’s announcement of a renewed focus on maternity services was therefore welcomed, alongside the news that Family Hubs will be rolled out across all local authorities. These are both issues that we have campaigned for over a long time – and represent good news for babies, children and families.
However, the Secretary of State’s speech today only contained half a plan.
The Secretary of State is right that “too often the cradle has been forgotten” and recognised the value of “universal health services”. But if government is serious about putting the cradle back at the heart of public services, Family Hubs alone are not enough. Family Hubs can play an important role in providing a welcoming Hub for families, but they cannot deliver on their promise alone without a skilled health workforce. That health workforce includes health visitors, who will be needed to reach every family (including the multitude who either can’t or won’t access a Family Hub), identify needs early, provide trusted and expert support, and connect families to wider services in the community.
Health visitors were a vital part of the success of the Sure Start programme and provide an important ‘healthcare’ bridge between maternity services, primary care, local communities and specialist services, supporting families during the critical first 1,001 days and beyond. By identifying problems early and intervening before needs escalate, there is a significant body of evidence which shows that health visitors help reduce pressure on overstretched NHS and public services, and improve outcomes for babies, children and families across a breadth of public health, education and social care priorities.
Yet the lack of a plan for health visiting was notable in its absence in today’s announcements.
Let’s be clear about the data: In her speech today, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care spoke about the recent achievements of the Labour government in its mission to “rebuild the NHS again… with 14,000 more nurses and health visitors”. Whilst this is true at high-level (as data on the number of registered nurses and health visitors is combined and presented together), it is categorically incorrect to say there has been an increase in health visitors in recent years.
The government’s own data, published just a few weeks ago, show that the number of health visitors in England has fallen by around 40% since 2015 – and there is wide and unacceptable variation in service provision and support for families across the UK. The government previously committed to strengthening health visiting. But there remains no indication today of how this will be achieved.
Unless there is a clear plan to rebuild these services, the ambition to support families from “the cradle to the grave” will be difficult to realise.
England is now falling further behind other UK nations that have invested in and strengthened their health visiting services. Meanwhile, the Health and Social Care Committee highlighted the scale of the health visitor workforce crisis and recommended immediate investment in an additional 1,000 health visitors as a first step while a fuller assessment of workforce need is undertaken.
Commenting on today’s announcement, Alison Morton OBE, iHV CEO said:
“The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is absolutely right that the cradle has been forgotten. But if government is serious about putting the cradle back at the heart of health services, it needs more than buildings and programmes. It needs the health visitors who work alongside families every day, spotting problems early and preventing needs from escalating.
“The government now has access to far better data on the state of health visiting services. The challenge is clear. The evidence is clear. What is now urgently needed is a plan to fix the workforce crisis in health visiting.
“We stand ready to work with government to develop a long-term workforce plan for health visiting that ensures every baby, child and family can access the healthcare and support they need, when they need it.”
