2nd July 2015
The provisional figures for health visitors employed in March 2015, at the official end of the Health Visitor Implementation Plan (HVIP) 2011-2015: a call to action (DH 2011), have been released from the Health & Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). This reveals that there were 12,077 full time equivalent health visitors in post, 3,985 more than in May 2010. This is a fantastic achievement and is warmly welcomed by the Institute of Health Visiting.
The HVIP set out a call to action to expand and strengthen health visiting services as the start of life is a crucial time for children and parents. The number of health visitors had been in decline and, in many areas, there were not enough to offer all families the support they needed. As part of the HVIP, the Government committed to an extra 4,200 health visitors by 2015 – to create good, well-resourced health visiting services to help ensure that families have a positive start, working in partnership with GPs, maternity and other health services, Children’s Centres and other early years services.
Dr Cheryll Adams, Director of the Institute of Health Visiting, commented: “’What a fantastic achievement this is, the beneficiaries will be children, families and communities up and down the country.”
Dame Sarah Cowley, Emeritus Professor, King’s College London, and Trustee of the Institute of Health Visiting, added: “Huge congratulations and thanks to everyone concerned – health visitors and their colleagues, practice teachers and managers, educators and students and, of course, the HVIP team driving it all – it has been a hard journey, not least because health needs have increased a lot over the same period.”
Now, the challenge is to maintain the momentum. It is to be expected that there will be some slippage at this time of year as posts are left unfilled awaiting new students, so there is always a dip in the summer. The HSCIC figures suggest that nearly 7000 students needed to be trained in order to get 4,000 health visitors in post, because retention is not as good as it should be. Health visitor retention is a project currently being undertaken by the Institute of Health Visiting to identify what is needed to help keep trained health visitors in post.
Dame Sarah continued: “The Government missed their target of 4,200 health visitors, but only just – still an increase of 49.2% overall. It is a great achievement, but disappointing that the big cities – London (especially), Birmingham, Manchester – are where there are still big gaps.”
One region that didn’t reach its target numbers was London, where there was only a 37% increase, although they needed 50%. Some parts of the South also needed more than the 63% that they got, but it was still a large boost to their health visitor numbers.
ENDS
For more information, please contact: Julie Cooper, Communications and Marketing Manager at the Institute of Health Visiting on 07508 344716 or[email protected]
Notes to editors
HSCIC Health Visitor Data
- The official provisional dataset can be found at
About the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV)
- The Institute of Health Visiting is a UK Centre of Excellence supporting the development of universally high-quality health visiting practice.
- It was launched on 28th November 2012 to promote excellence in health visiting practice to benefit all children, families and communities.
- The aim for the iHV is to raise standards in health visiting practice, so improving public health outcomes for all children, families and communities.
- For more information go to www.ihv.org.uk
- Follow the Institute of Health Visiting on Twitter @iHealthVisiting and Facebook
