iHV publishes response to NHS Mental Health consultation

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) has published its response to the consultation – Mental Health in the Long-Term Plan for the NHS.

The consultation is to identify opportunities to deliver the NHS’s goal to provide world-class mental healthcare – improving the outcomes for everyone who uses the NHS services.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, Executive Director, Institute of Health Visiting said:

“At the Institute, we firmly believe there is no health without mental health, which is why we have perinatal and infant mental health (PIMH) as a priority focus. We welcome the opportunity to respond to this consultation to ensure that all families get consistent, accessible, high quality care and support for their mental health during the perinatal period. Our response reflects the many consultations and surveys we have done with our members and other stakeholders over the recent months and years.”

The Institute’s response includes its top three priorities in mental health:

Resourcing health visiting services through joint commissioning which formally requires health visitors to take a specific lead for perinatal and infant mental health;
Closing the gap between knowledge of what affects child and family mental health, and how services are commissioned and organised to implement this knowledge;
A need to concentrate efforts to create a much wider understanding of the epidemiology of mental illness with so much of it having its origins in the very first years of life.

Dr Adams continued:

“Early intervention for families in the perinatal period will reduce the burden of mental illness across the life-course! We have to get that message over to politicians and policy makers, so that funding is allocated upstream and not disproportionately spent on secondary and tertiary care, fixing problems that could have been prevented from occurring in the first place.

“This submission focuses on how, with the right support from the NHS and partner organisations, health visitors can ensure that all families with children receive the right care and support for their mental health, at the right time, in the right place.”

Download iHV's response to Mental Health in the Long-Term Plan for the NHS Consultation

Download Appendix to Mental Health in the Long-Term Plan for the NHS Consultation

iHV publishes its 10-year plan for health visiting

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) has published its preferred plan for the relationship of health visiting with the NHS in the next 10 years.

As the NHS writes its new 10-year plan, with a specific focus on children, prevention and mental health, the Institute of Health Visiting has published its own recommendations for strengthening health visiting services alongside.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, Executive Director, Institute of Health Visiting said:

“Health visitors have a vital role in delivering early preventative services for infants and children, and in supporting parents through the emotional challenges of early parenthood. Unless there is a plan to strengthen health visiting services alongside the new NHS 10-year plan, it will be impossible to deliver on many of what we expect to be its worthy ambitions. We hope that our rationale, and the recommendations in our new position statement, will be taken seriously by those writing the plan.

Dr Adams continued:

“Moving health visiting commissioning completely from the NHS to local authorities, in October 2015, has created many challenges for the quality of services that health visitors have been able to deliver, and for the essential relationships that health visitors need to have with NHS partners. Part of the challenge has come from cuts to public health budgets, but it’s more complex than that – the loss of close relationships with NHS services, in particular with general practitioners, has also been very unhelpful.

“Three years of the local authority commissioning model has seen a loss of around 20% of the workforce and worryingly high levels of grade mix. Therefore, we are proposing a new joint NHS/Local Authority governance/commissioning model – this we hope will avoid such challenges for services to our most vulnerable members of society in the future.

Further recommendations

“Other recommendations include that every family should have at least nine universal contacts. This requires new investment into the profession, but that will be more than offset by savings in preventable treatment costs in later life. Nine core universal contacts being delivered by health visitors is becoming the norm for Welsh families, with Scottish families receiving eleven! This is based on the evidence of what can be achieved by providing robust health visiting services during the very early years – and English children shouldn’t be disadvantaged.”

Dr Adams concluded:

“Our position statement makes clear what we believe needs to happen to improve outcomes for children through strengthened health visiting – with a renewed focus on children’s services, improving mental health and prevention and reducing inequalities in the essential early years period. We are circulating it widely to decision makers and those concerned about giving every child the best start in life.”

Download iHV position statement - Health Visiting and the NHS in the next 10 years

NHS Screening Programmes e-learning launched

Health Education England has worked in partnership with Public Health England to transfer the NHS Screening Programmes’ e-learning modules on to the e-Learning for Healthcare (e-LfH) online platform.

There are 11 NHS Screening Programmes in England. These programmes are commissioned and managed based on the recommendations provided by UK National Screening Committee.

Screening is a way of identifying people who are at higher risk of a health problem, so that treatment can be offered or information given to help them make personalised informed decisions about their care.

Healthcare professionals use e-learning as part of their training and continuing professional development and the new platform allows them to have all their NHS e-learning training in one place.

The e-learning, which was previously available on the CPD Screening website, is regularly updated to reflect national standards.

This e-learning offers comprehensive training for healthcare professionals who offer screening to:

pregnant women
newborn babies
adults (abdominal aortic aneurysm).

It does not currently include e-learning for Cancer Screening or Diabetic Eye Screening, but will in future.

Access the e-learning modules on the e-Learning for Healthcare website

New NHS FGM summer campaign launched

The NHS launched its new Female Genital mutilation (FGM) summer campaign on 9 July to coincide with the approach of the school summer holidays.

As we near the start of the summer school holidays when the numbers of girls taken outside of the UK to be cut increases, the NHS is raising awareness of the severe health implications of FGM for those living in UK who are members of communities affected by FGM. TV advertising is being used to directly reach out to communities with this message.

The film features a roundtable table discussion led by Henry Bonsu, a well-known British African broadcaster, together with a panel of experts all speaking openly and candidly about FGM. Alongside the film, the NHS has produced some short social media videos which are being distributed via Facebook.

The film will be broadcast on several UK African satellite TV channels from 9 – 31 July.

You can view the video, called ‘FGM: The Facts’ on NHS Choices – www.nhs.uk/fgm

Please share the video and use social media help the campaign reach further.

For any further info or to help support you to be part of this campaign, please contact Caroline Symes [email protected]