20th July 2023

Are you a health visitor, a health visiting leader or work as part of a health visiting team supporting babies, children, and families? How do you support families with childhood illnesses? Has this changed over time? We need your insights! Your voice matters!

iHV is working with three leading paediatricians on an important rapid review on the changing trends of A&E presentations for babies and children 0-4 years. As part of this project, we are undertaking a UK-wide survey to explore whether health visiting practice has changed over time. This focuses on health visiting’s role to support parents to manage  minor illnesses and improve their health literacy.

We want to learn about your experiences of practice now – and also compare this with your experiences before the pandemic (we are interested in any experience that you had working in health visiting between  2015 to March 2020 / choose the time when your service was most well-resourced during this period).

Why is this important?

Our A&E departments are witnessing an alarming rise in attendances for minor conditions among babies and young children, yet there has not been a similar increase in hospital admissions for this age group. There are many hypotheses for this changing trend.

What these attendances do tell us is that these parents are worried when their baby or child is unwell and they are choosing to get the help that they need in A&E, rather than elsewhere.

And this is where you come in!

Health visiting teams have a pivotal role in supporting families, managing minor illnesses, and enhancing parental health literacy. Your knowledge and expertise in this area can really help!

Tell us about your own experiences – advocate for the families where you work!

We want to hear your thoughts on the key drivers of families’ behaviours when they are managing minor illnesses.

Your answers will remain anonymous, enabling you to be candid about your experiences. We need your help to get a big sample to make sure that the findings count and are taken seriously by policymakers.

What next? With your help, we’re aiming to influence national policy to make sure parents get the right support when they need it most.  

The survey findings will provide vital information for the health sector. Your feedback will shape an important thematic report and short film that will tell the story of changing trends in A&E presentations for children 0-4 and the role of health visitors in this area. The report and film will be shared with politicians, policy makers, national bodies, and the media to influence policies that affect health and parenting support.

Thank you so much for your support.

How to take part in the UK’s first national health visiting minor illness survey

• Take the survey yourself now and invite your fellow health visiting colleagues to participate.
• The survey will only take around 10 minutes of your time.
• For those people on our mailing lists (including members and expired members), you will have received an email from us with the survey link. So please do check your emails.
• For those health visitors or members of health visiting teams who are not on our mailing lists, or can’t find your email, and would like to complete this vital survey, please contact [email protected] to request the survey link.

 Together, we can really make a difference!

#HealthVisiting #ParentalHealthLiteracy #ChildrensHealth #ManagingMinorIllnesses