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Coronavirus: Rise in health visitor workloads puts vulnerable families at risk

The needs of children, especially those at risk of domestic abuse, have been missed due to an increase in health visitor workloads as staff were moved to support the Covid-19 workforce, a survey by UCL warns.

The vast majority of health visitors surveyed (96 per cent) reported being concerned about children in homes at risk of domestic violence and abuse. They were also worried about:

The survey of 663 health visitors in England found that 41 per cent of respondents in teams that lost staff had between six and 50 team members redeployed between 19 March to 3 June this year. In approximately a tenth of these teams there was a redeployment of at least half the staff members.

This meant that 253 respondents (38 per cent) had their caseload increase, some with an increase of 50 per cent or more, and 73 per cent of those that experienced a change reported that their caseload had not returned to its usual size.

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