Research

The NMC Standards expect that:

Specialist Community Public Health (SCPHN) Health visitors, locate, critique, use, generate and apply evidence, data and information that seeks to promote health and prevent ill health and disability from life choices, environmental factors, non-communicable diseases, trauma or other health conditions. They evaluate public health interventions to better understand what works and what may need to change and why.

They propose new and innovative ideas and concepts to inform and improve the health and wellbeing of people across the life course and apply an evidence-based approach to optimise public health programmes and interventions.

This expectation applies to health visitors throughout the UK. We share the ambitions set out in the Chief Nursing Officer’s strategic aim for research in England:

to create a climate where nurses are empowered to lead, use, support and participate in research as part of their job, where the voice of the profession is valued and impacts on conduct, leadership and translation of research.

We aim to amplify the voice of health visitors and the babies, children and families we work with across the UK, so that ‘leading, delivering and supporting research is valued and embedded in the everyday practice of health visitors’.

We do not directly fund research but work in collaboration with universities and other organisations as partners in research. We aim to support research training and opportunities for health visitors to undertake research, develop their skills and support career development in research.