iHV provides evidence at the COVID-19 Inquiry

iHV CEO, Alison Morton, provided evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children, young people and their health services at today’s COVID-19 Inquiry Module 8 Public Hearings.

Alison Morton, iHV CEO, providing evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children, young people and their health services at the COVID-19 Inquiry Module 8 Public Hearings

The UK COVID-19 Inquiry has been set up to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and learn lessons for the future.

Module 8 is examining the impact of the pandemic on children and young people in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It will consider the impact of the pandemic on children across society including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and from a diverse range of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.

Alison, on behalf of the Institute of Health Visiting, was invited to be a core-participant in the Inquiry Module 8 – having previously also submitted evidence to Module 3 – Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on healthcare systems in the 4 nations of the UK (read our news story here).

Alison joined today’s other speakers: Duncan Burton (on behalf of NHS England); Prof. Steve Turner (on behalf of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health); Claire Dorer OBE (on behalf of the National Association of Special Schools); and John Barneby (on behalf of Oasis Community Learning).

Alison’s evidence

In her written submission and oral evidence today, Alison described how the needs of our nation’s babies and children were not given the attention they deserved in the emergency plans – and babies were ignored and largely forgotten. Other areas of healthcare were prioritised and the response failed to adequately consider the breadth of the pandemic’s wider harms.

As a direct consequence, too many children were harmed – yet, these harms were entirely foreseeable and predictable, and impacted child health, development and safety.

The pandemic was a highly stressful time for both families and services, with plans operationalised under huge pressure, lack of staff and multiple competing priorities. Staff came to work to do a good job – but this was very challenging. Like any emergency, lots of decisions were made; some were good, some were wrong from the start, and some were found to be flawed and caused unnecessary harm. And it took too long to reverse bad decisions.

One of the biggest failings for health visiting was the decision to “stop” the service and redeploy health visitors, under the misguided impression that they were needed most to care for acutely ill patients. In reality, health visitors were needed most on their own ‘frontline’, supporting babies, children and families during this stressful time. During the pandemic, health visitors were incredibly resourceful and supported millions of families – but as a result of these decisions, many missed out.

The second notable failing was the decision that contacts should be ‘virtual by default’. This was driven by insufficient PPE, a lack of understanding of the role of health visitors, and the importance of babies, young children and families being seen in person.

Thirdly, when it was clear that large numbers of families were struggling and demand for health visiting support soared, services should have been strengthened. Instead, health visiting experienced further cuts in real terms.

Commenting on the Inquiry, Alison said:

“It is clear that babies, children and families were failed in this pandemic. Their needs were not prioritised. Too many were not given care, support and protection when they needed it most. To put this right, children need more than an apology – because there is a burning platform for us to do better. And there are two urgent priorities:
– Firstly, for the children in this generation, now! who have been harmed, or have needs that aren’t being met. We need a national “Babies, Children and Young People Covid-19 Recovery and Rebuild Plan”. This cannot be ignored any longer – inequalities are not inevitable. And we know enough about what works to make a difference now.
– Secondly, for the babies, children and young people in the future – for the next emergency. We need to be better prepared to cope next time – as things stand now, we look to be worse off.

“It’s clear that the failures were due to systemic failures, in the way that children’s needs – and child health services – are resourced and prioritised in the heart of government. We need to create a better future. And this will take investment and a plan to tackle the root causes of poor health and rebuild child health services. This cannot be put at the bottom of the pile again.”

Recommendations

In her statement, Alison provided a full list of recommendations and set out her ‘top three’:

A cross-government strategy is needed to prioritise the earliest years of life and reduce inequalities. This must include actions to tackle the wider determinants of health and a commitment to world class child health services.
Ensure that the holistic needs of babies, children and young people are explicitly addressed in future emergency plans. And this must include the pandemic’s wider impacts.
Specifically for health visiting:

Health visitors are most needed as Specialist Community Public Health Nurses working with families during emergencies. The health visiting service must be categorised to continue and not stop during these worrying times.
There is an urgency to rebuild health visiting services in England where services have been decimated, following years of cuts. We urgently need more health visitors because health visitors are a vital child health workforce, providing a frontline service that reaches all families and works with others to ensure they get the support they need to thrive.

And this is needed to help create the healthiest generation of children ever.

Recordings

Watch a clip of Alison at the COVID-19 Inquiry Module 8 Public Hearings:

Watch the full Module 8, 8 October PM session, with Alison Morton - Alison starts at 34:56

Read the full transcript here

Read Alison Morton's written evidence for Module 8 of The Covid-19 Inquiry here (publicly available 8 October 2025)

Alison’s submission for Module 8 builds on her submission for Module 3, with the inclusion of additional evidence and iHV position statements on key issues affecting babies and young children.

See all recordings from the COVID-19 Inquiry proceedings – https://www.youtube.com/@UKCovid-19Inquiry

Speaking up – Alison Morton gives powerful oral evidence to First 1000 Days Inquiry

This week, on 4 June, Alison Morton, iHV CEO, gave oral evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee Inquiry on the First 1000 Days. Wednesday’s session was the second oral evidence session for the First 1000 Days Inquiry which accepted written evidence earlier this year (including a submission from the iHV) to examine progress made in this area since their last inquiry in 2019.

Health and Social Care Committee – First 1000 Days Inquiry

The session, titled “The First 1000 Days: a renewed focus”, examined local authority provision of early years services through the Family Hubs Model, with MPs posing questions about access to services, funding and workforce capacity. The cross-party Committee, chaired by Paulette Hamilton MP, were also particularly interested in the current state of health visiting and its impacts on babies, children and families.

During the two-hour session, Alison responded to numerous lines of questioning on the health visitor workforce, regional variation, commissioning arrangements, as well as opportunities to maximise the role of health visitors in the government’s three key shifts for the NHS and plans to improve uptake of immunisations.

Alison was joined on the panel by:

Christine Farquharson, Associate Director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Rukshana Kapasi, Director of Health at Barnardo’s
Rachel Roberts, Strategic Lead for Early Help and Prevention, Children, Young People and Family Services at Hull City Council.

The session considered the Family Hubs model in comparison with the Sure Start model, with Members questioning Christina Farquharson, the witness from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), on the recent IFS report on the impact of Sure Start centres and variations with Family Hubs. The cross-party Committee explored how effective Family Hubs had been at reaching families from different communities – and also included lines of questioning on the adequacy of current funding and where additional funding should be targeted, if it were available.

Influencing policies affecting health and advocating for others is a central tenet of health visiting. Whilst there were many examples shared by panellists on successes in Family Hubs, Alison provided a powerful voice for our profession – and for the babies, children and families who we support – highlighting the differences between the Family Hub model and the Healthy Child Programme, and the current gaps in healthcare provision for the first 1000 days.

Alison challenged the Committee to have high aspirations for children, stating:

“Every child deserves a robust healthcare system – postnatal care shouldn’t be left to chance… as much as we want to have a positive spin on this… there is a burning platform that we need to do better. And actually, what we’re seeing is huge variation across the country… and we need to think bigger and be ambitious for children.”

Responding to the evidence, Ben Coleman MP, gave a heartfelt response, stating:

“I’ve been listening to this discussion with rising fury. I think the situation we are in now, the collapse in health visitor numbers, the collapse in funding for… helping parents and children to start life is – I’ve got to say it – it’s an absolute disgrace! And we are letting our communities down, we are letting our families down, we are creating huge problems in our communities – and I want to say well done [to all health visitors] for what you are doing in an absolutely stinking situation! We have to put it right now.”

Alison said she hoped a commitment to improve health visiting would form part of the government’s highly anticipated 2025 spending review on departmental spending:

“What [health visitors] want is a government to stand up and say, ‘we back our health visitors, we support them, and we show you this by putting our words into action, and we’re going to invest in you’, so I’m hoping that might be the outcome of the spending review.”

Recognising the ‘burn out’ that many health visitors are facing, she also praised the tenacity of the workforce at an increasingly tough time for the profession.

“I am overwhelmed every day by the tenacity of health visitors and the brilliant work they’re doing despite the pressures that they are under.”

The session was broadcast live on Parliament TV – if you missed it, you can catch up and watch the recording of the full 2-hour session here.

And a short sample of the session here or click below:

Covid-19 Inquiry Module 3, witness statement on health visiting published

In June 2023, our CEO, Alison Morton received a formal request for evidence for Module 3 of The Covid Inquiry from The Rt. Hon Baroness Hallett DBE PC (Chair of the Inquiry). All witness statements for Module 3 are now publicly available.

Alison’s witness statement presents evidence of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on health systems across the UK, between: 1 March 2020 and 28 June 2022. In particular, it provides a historical record of policy decisions and the healthcare systems’ response related to health visiting in England. The scope of the evidence includes people’s experience of health visiting, and workforce implications (including redeployment, access to PPE, the use of technology, and the impact of the pandemic on health visiting practitioners, including those in training).

Background

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is the independent public inquiry set up to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and learn lessons for the future. The Inquiry is Chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, a former Court of Appeal judge, who has the power to compel the production of documents and call witnesses to give evidence on oath. The UK Covid-19 Inquiry covers the handling of the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (a separate additional Inquiry is taking place in Scotland).

The Inquiry is split into 10 modules, which have different subject topics. Module 3 of the Inquiry opened on 8 November 2022, with a statement from Baroness Hallett:

“The pandemic had an unprecedented impact on health systems across the UK. The Inquiry will investigate and analyse the healthcare decisions made during the pandemic, the reasons for them and their impact, so that lessons can be learned and recommendations made for the future…”

Alison was asked to provide evidence on health visiting, in relation to the following key topics:

Topic 1: The impact of government decision-making on health visiting during the pandemic
Topic 2: The use of technology to conduct appointments and meetings
Topic 3: The impact of Covid-19 on people’s experience of healthcare and quality of care – the impact on those requiring care for reasons other than Covid-19
Topic 4: Staffing capacity including the redeployment of health visiting practitioners from one area to another
Topic 5: Infection prevention and control. The availability of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for those working in the health visiting during the pandemic. The effect of national guidance on infection control within healthcare settings
Topic 6: The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Institute of Health Visiting and its members/ practitioners working in health visiting teams, including those in training.

Timeline

The initial period for gathering evidence was relatively short, with the call for evidence received on 20 June 2023 and the first submission due by 15 August 2023. This was then followed by two further rounds of clarification questions from the Module’s legal team and the management of redactions of personal information (unless it related to senior officials), with the final submission completed in February 2024. This evidence will form part of the Inquiry, alongside the evidence gathered through the public hearings for Module 3 which were held between 9 September 2024 and 28 November 2024 (available to access here). The evidence is all currently being reviewed and the recommendations will then be formulated, with a clear monitoring process in place to ensure that they are acted upon.

Commenting on being part of the Covid-19 Inquiry, Alison Morton said:

“When I first received the formal request to provide evidence on health visiting from Baroness Hallett, I felt an enormous weight of personal responsibility for our profession, recognising the importance of telling our story. And a mantle to do justice to the experiences of all my health visiting colleagues across the country, as well as the babies, children and families that we all seek to serve. My witness statement provides an account of the decisions that were made, based on the information that was available at the time. My overriding goal is that it provides a foundation for learning and adds to the weight of evidence to drive lasting change for the better!

“My statement comes with a ‘health warning’ – it is lengthy – and reading it back today, I had vivid flashbacks to March 2020. A time when the world shut down – but babies kept on being born, and the struggles of family life were magnified for so many. A lot happened in the next 30 months. There were so many brilliant examples of the tenacity of the human spirit to care for others, as well as harrowing accounts of the multiple harms experienced by so many people.

“At the iHV, we were involved with national policymakers, frontline practitioners, service leads, researchers, and families with babies and young children. The evidence brings together pieces of the jigsaw from that time, when a pandemic exposed vulnerabilities and weaknesses in healthcare systems, as well as fantastic examples of professionalism and rapid innovations. Health visiting practitioners up and down the country will also have their own stories to tell of this challenging time.

“Since I first submitted the evidence in August 2023, more research and evidence on the wider impacts of the pandemic on babies, children and families has been published – there are also still many unanswered questions. And more learning will no doubt come to light in the years to come. With a growing weight of evidence on the importance of the earliest years of life, and soaring levels of need, we need to learn from the past and now get on with the serious business of building a better future.”

Read Alison Morton’s written evidence for Module 3 of The Covid-19 Inquiry here

Read iHV's latest State of Health Visiting Report to see evidence of the soaring levels of need

Learning from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s fourth annual report

In case you missed it – last week, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review (CSPR) Panel released its fourth annual report which is described as a barometer of the health of the national safeguarding system, highlighting both strengths and areas for improvement in multi-agency practice. The report provides important insights into patterns in English safeguarding practice, examining learning from incidents where children have died or suffered serious harm due to abuse or neglect.

In the Foreword to the report, Annie Hudson, the Chair of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, reminds us that, “The children at the heart of this report endured shocking, almost indescribable, violence and maltreatment. We must never become inured or habituated to this. What happened to these children cannot be undone, but what we must do is assess how well agencies responded to their needs.”

The findings presented in the 2022/23 annual report are based on:

serious incident notifications (SINs) during the 15-month period of January 2022 to March 2023 with a focus on the 12-month period of April 2022 to March 2023
rapid reviews with incidents that occurred during the 12-month period from April 2022 to March 2023
a sample of Local child safeguarding practice reviews (LCSPRs) produced during the 15-month period of January 2022 to March 2023
letters to safeguarding partnerships from the Panel used to assess the quality of rapid reviews during the 12-month period of April 2022 to March 2023.

The review also draws on evidence in the 2 national reviews and 2 thematic reviews the CSPR published in 2022 and 2023.

The Panel received 393 serious incident notifications during this period, with 37% (146) related to child deaths and 58% (227) involving incidents of serious harm to children.

Review highlights vulnerability of babies

Babies under the age of 12 months old comprised the single largest age group within the sample of rapid reviews (36%, n=142).
Over a fifth (26%, n=25) of serious incidents involving children under one year old occurred in the 10% most deprived areas compared to 15% (n=7) of children aged 1 to 5 years old.

Parental and family stressors were the most significant factor in escalating risk when it comes to safeguarding children under 12 months old. Previous reports like the Myth of Invisible Men and Bruising in Non-Mobile Infants emphasised challenges in responding to this vulnerable group. The review builds on the key learning from the inquiry into the murders of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes in highlighting the importance of professionals having the time to understand the context in which babies and young children are living:

“Knowing what life is like for children, highlighting the centrality of children’s voices and experience, and those of their parents, carers, and wider family members, but also the knowledge, skill and confidence required to build a full picture of children’s lives to enable the best safeguarding, support and protection.”

Understanding the roles and risks of all adults around very young children is crucial, given their dependence on caregivers and the potential for rapid escalation. The analysis also highlighted ongoing problems in effectively assessing and managing risks involving babies, with connections to domestic abuse, where pregnancy is a recognised risk factor in such relationships, posing challenges for professionals.

Parents’ and carers’ needs

Among the 393 cases reported to the Panel, 13% (n=51) involved parents under 25 years old, and 3% (n=13) had a history of being in the care system, although identification was sometimes challenging. This indicates a potential need for additional support from services like GPs and health visitors for these parents.

Conditions in practice

One of the main messages from the review is the importance of providing practitioners with the best opportunity to identify, assist and protect children. Specifically for health visiting, the following factors were found to hinder optimal practice and safeguarding decision making:

Major challenges in workforce recruitment and retention, most obviously in children’s social care and health visiting, which impact on the quality of practice. The review raises concerns about the year-on-year decline in the number of health visitors.
Increases in population numbers and levels of vulnerability – this includes evidence from the iHV Annual State of Health Visiting survey. Alongside the decline in workforce numbers, these place significant pressures on health visiting services in meeting the scale of need.
Limited GP input and incomplete health records in multi-agency meetings posed a common problem in recognising vulnerabilities affecting families. Inadequate information sharing between agencies, like neonatal units, midwives, health visitors, and GPs, especially in families with young children, significantly impacts the protection of children at risk of harm.
There was also evidence that questions about domestic abuse were not being asked during checks with mothers if fathers were present (this learning point applies regardless of sex and gender of both parents or main carers). While including fathers in checks and appointments is essential to avoid them becoming invisible to services, this finding emphasises the need to ensure that mothers can speak to health visitors alone in case the presence of the other parent inhibits disclosure.
The report emphasises the importance of working upstream to prevent situations reaching crisis point.

The report concludes with a series of reflective questions for safeguarding leaders to support them in promoting the very high standards of safeguarding practice and makings sure that learning reviews drive longer term change to help children and families. These questions are organised around 6 key strategic themes:

Culture: creating an inclusive culture where professional challenge is promoted.
Clear partnership intent: ensuring clear and balanced partnership working.
Strategy to delivery: ensuring strategy is carried through to frontline practice.
Assessing effectiveness: evaluating impact of the safeguarding system.
Getting upstream: ensuring learning feeds into prevention, early intervention and the commissioning of services.
Workforce: working together effectively across agencies and promoting development.

Read the CSPR Panel report in full here

House of Lords publishes Select Committee response to Integration of Primary and Community Care consultation

Today, the House of Lords Primary and Community Care Committee published its report ‘Patients at the centre: integrating primary and community care’, in response to the consultation it held earlier this year.

The consultation explored the many challenges facing primary and community care and the sustainability of the NHS. These include high service demand, an ageing population, workforce shortages and insufficient preventative care. The Committee explored how integrating services could address these challenges and sought evidence from clinicians, community care services, local authorities, researchers and voluntary organisations from across the country.

The Institute of Health Visiting was asked to contribute to the consultation and we did this in a number of ways:

Alison Morton, iHV CEO, submitted written evidence in April 2023.
Professor Sally Kendall MBE, who is one of the iHV’s four founding health visitors and an Honorary Fellow, presented oral evidence as a witness.
Sarah Cartner, a member of the iHV’s Health Visitor Advisor Forum, and a health visitor from Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, also represented the iHV at a roundtable event hosted by the Committee at the Palace of Westminster – read her Voices blog.

We were delighted to see that health visiting has been recognised as a key sector of the health service, within the report. The report also highlights the challenges of workforce shortages and fragmented models of care, alongside the hugely valuable service that health visiting provides to GPs and families. Evidence from Professor Campbell, Professor of General Practice and Primary Care at the University of Exeter is cited. He states, “Health visiting … has been hugely valued by GPs and their teams, but it is now no longer really part of general practice. Sadly, we have lost so many health visitors that we do not know who these people are or where they are. They provide a hugely valuable service, safeguarding and supporting families and people with long-term conditions.”

Alison Morton, iHV CEO, commented:

“We are delighted to see that health visiting has been recognised as a key sector of the health service by the Committee. The report also highlights the very real challenges of workforce shortages and fragmented models of care that are having a significant impact across the whole health and care system.

“In his evidence, Professor Campbell, Professor of General Practice and Primary Care, speaks for many GPs, highlighting how much they value health visitors and the work that they do to safeguard and support all families. He also raises valid concerns about the impacts of the depletion of the health visiting service in recent years which is hampering collaborative working. Close working relationships between health visitors and GPs are vitally important to support their collective work with all babies, young children and families, and particularly those living with complex conditions, risk and vulnerability. We share the Professor’s concerns and support the recommendations in this report. To deliver better joined-up care, we urgently need more health visitors.”

The Integration of Primary and Community Care Committee Report’s has 4 key recommendations:

Structures and organisation of NHS services need to be streamlined. Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) are a good starting point for collaborative working but their relationship with other healthcare bodies, public bodies, and local government must be based on mutual professional respect. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) should evaluate ICS structures before implementing any major health service reforms.

There needs to be a more simplified and flexible system for awarding contracts and allocating funds within the NHS to encourage multi-disciplinary, integrated working. DHSC and NHS England (NHSE) should reform the contract process and ensure new contracts are flexible in the commissioning of primary care. The Government should explore different ownership models for GP practices to facilitate more joined-up and better care.

Efficient data-sharing is crucial to successful healthcare integration. Fragmented systems often require patients to repeatedly provide the same medical information, causing frustration. A properly maintained Single Patient Record (SPR) and the ability for intersectoral data-sharing between healthcare professionals are essential to tackle this issue. The DHSC must issue guidance to standardise data practices and clarify data sharing within privacy laws, to ensure timely patient access to medical data.

Equipping staff to work across multiple clinical disciplines through improved training will make integration of services easier. Currently, staff spend more time meeting everyday demand, rather than implementing new integration strategies. Clinicians should be introduced to the work of other services through job rotations. Social care needs should also be included in the NHS’s Long Term Workforce Plan to ensure that enough well-trained social carers are available.

Sally Kendall MBE, Professor of Community Nursing and Public Health at University of Kent, said:

“Despite some strong evidence to the Committee in relation to integration across all community services, it is disappointing that children’s health does not receive a lot of specific attention in the report. Childhood is lived in the home (wherever that may be), school, nursery and neighbourhood. There is a huge opportunity for ICBs to come together with local authorities and the NHS and voluntary sector to integrate health for all children and close the inequality gap. This opportunity may be lost for future generations of children if ICBs do not recognise the importance of the community services such as health visiting and school nursing and their navigational role with primary care and other community services to ensure that children’s health and safeguarding needs are met.”

Links for further reading:

Read iHV submission to Integration of Primary and Community Care Committee (April 2023)

Read Sarah Cartner's Voices blog:

iHV Submission to the Down Syndrome Act Guidance: call for evidence

iHV has submitted its evidence for the DHSC Down Syndrome Act 2022 guidance: call for evidence which closes at 11.45pm on 8 November 2022.

The evidence base of what families with babies and children with Down’s syndrome value from health and related services has increased in recent years and should be acted upon in the design of services including health visiting. People with Down’s syndrome have a genetic variation. Whilst they share some common features, it must be emphasised they are all individuals with their own abilities, needs, interests and aspirations. Down’s syndrome is not a disease and people who have Down’s syndrome are not ill.

In the document below, we provide evidence in response to the questions for professionals, about health services, and in relation to the health visiting service in England.

iHV evidence for Down's Syndrome consultation submission - October 2022

iHV has resources to support its members in practice – please see Good Practice Points below:

GPP – Supporting children with Down’s syndrome and their families

GPP – Supporting children with Down’s syndrome: growth, feeding and development

New evidence paper published by the National Children’s Bureau

New evidence paper published by the National Children’s Bureau: Impact of investing in prevention on demand for statutory children’s social care

The final report of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care is expected imminently. To support the launch of the Review, the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) has worked with their academic partners to showcase the latest research on children’s social care.

The NCB’s new evidence paper (Impact of investing in prevention on demand for statutory children’s social care) demonstrates that investing in prevention, including family support and early help, can reduce demand for more expensive crisis support later, and also leads to better services overall.

The NCB says:

“We have a unique opportunity to strengthen families and invest in early intervention. We must seize this moment to transform children’s lives for the better. Rarely has the case for early investment been so clearly articulated. We have to seize the moment”.

Highlights from the evidence paper:

Increased spending on children’s social care preventative services (including family support and early help) has a positive impact on:
- Ofsted judgements
- Numbers of Children in Need
- Rates of 16–17-year-olds starting periods in care.
The distribution of local authority spending on prevention has become increasingly less well matched to need.
Two recent papers have reinforced the contributory causal relationship between family poverty and levels of child abuse and neglect and the demand for children’s social care services, including rates of entry to care.

The evidence paper concludes with a brief summary of further contextual research on the association between household income and intervention, and on systems-thinking in children’s social care.

You can read more in the NCB’s evidence paper here.

You can join the iHV in raising awareness of the publication of the NCB’s evidence paper and share on social media using the prepared tweet below:

The imminent #CareReview is our chance to secure a future where every child feels safe, secure & supported @NCBtweets’ new evidence paper shows how investment in preventative services can help build that future, saving money in the process. https://bit.ly/3yO2Y2D

iHV presents at APPG for Conception to Age Two

If you missed yesterday’s All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Conception to Age Two meeting held online, you can watch it on the link below.

Yesterday’s APPG meeting was chaired by Tim Loughton MP, and the topic was ‘Midwives, Health Visitors and Family Hubs’. Alison Morton, Executive Director iHV, gave evidence on the challenges and opportunities facing health visiting – you can listen to Alison at 1:10:52 until 1:23:00.

Go to YouTube to watch the APPG

iHV welcomes Early Years Commission – A Cross-party Manifesto

We’re delighted to see yesterday’s cross-party support for the early years published in the Early Years Commission: A cross-party manifesto – #EarlyYearsManifesto. Yet more evidence for the case for investment.

Alison Morton, Executive Director iHV, who provided evidence on health visiting as a witness to the commission commented:

“The importance of getting it right for every child cannot be over-emphasised. I am delighted to see such strong cross-party agreements and a cross-departmental commitment to prioritise the earliest years of life set out so clearly in this report. The commission has highlighted the importance of tackling the root causes of siloed working alongside the benefits of investing early, rather than ‘firefighting’ and tackling emergencies. With so much attention on the early years at the moment, action to start to put this right cannot come soon enough”.

The manifesto outlines how our country must give every child the best start in life, and right now we are falling short. Despite improvements among some children, too many continue to fall behind in their first few years, particularly those living in poverty. Many are not ready to learn by the age of five and struggle with their health and wellbeing, leading to damaging long-term consequences. It is this reality which obstructs our country’s path to a more prosperous future. We will never truly level up if we don’t recognise this. There are steps we can take now to help those children, even though they and we may not realise the benefits for decades.

It is good to see health visitors mentioned as a key workforce that requires strengthening in order to achieve these ambitions.

Through their Cross-party Manifesto, The Early Years Commission calls on central and local government, community organisations, the private sector, parents, and society as a whole to come together to achieve this goal.

Read Early Years Commission: A cross-party manifesto

Help improve new standards for community and public health nurses

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has launched their public consultation for specialist community public health nursing (SCPHN) standards – building on ambitions for community and public health nursing.

The new NMC standards offer the opportunity to build on the advances in the evidence base for universal child and family health visiting for the pressing public health challenges of our times. It is vitally important that the views of health visitors are heard and shape these new standards.

We will be responding from the iHV – as well as submitting your own response, look out for our mailings on ways that you can help shape the iHV’s response.

The standards, for specialist community public health nursing (SCPHN) and specialist practice qualifications (SPQs), will equip the next generation of community and public health nurses working in health and social care with the right proficiencies to care for people in a rapidly changing world.

These essential education standards were last updated over 15 years ago. But we need fit for purpose standards that reflect the realities of modern nursing in health and social care now

These draft standards, which have been co-produced with subject experts, will provide the right proficiencies these professionals need to support and care for people in a rapidly changing world.

The consultation will run until Monday 2 August 2021. Normally these NMC consultations run for 12 weeks but they’ve extended this one to more than 16 weeks to give you and your colleagues more time to take part given the continued pressures on services caused by the pandemic.

Go to NMC public consultation - Building on ambitions for community and public health nursing