Nursery World - Guidance for multi-agency working

New guidance to support local authorities in commissioning
children's public health services from next year identifies ways in
which health visitors and early years providers can work together to
achieve effective outcomes.

The Department of Health (DoH) guidance comes ahead of the transfer of responsibility for commissioning children's health services, including health visitors, from NHS England to local authorities from October 2015, under the Social Care Act 2012.

The DoH guidance is intended for use by commissioners, local authorities, early years providers and practitioners, as well as health visitors.

It has been developed to support delivery of public health commissioning for children from birth to five, known as the '0-5 Agenda', and the Government's Healthy Child Programme.

The Healthy Child Programme is a universal prevention and early intervention programme comprising of child health promotion, screening, immunisation, child development reviews and health-led parenting support.

The Early Years High Impact Area documents identify six areas (see box) where health visitors have the most impact on the health and well-being of children.

Throughout the documents, mention is given to multi-agency working across health, education and the early years sector.

This includes health visitors working with children's centres, to ensure that safety messages are promoted across early years settings to reduce childhood accidents, and working with early years providers, school nurses and other professionals to support families with early parenting and enhance school readiness.

This is in line with the Government's Health Visitor Implementation Plan, which calls for strong partnership working at all levels to improve support for children and families.

As part of the plan, the Government has committed to increasing the number of health visitors by 4,200 by 2015, along with delivering a more comprehensive health visiting service locally.

Figures for May 2013 revealed that more than 1,000 health visitors had been recruited over the previous two years. More than 2,000 health visitors were in training last year.

According to Obi Amadi, lead professional officer at the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association, part of the Unite trade union, the Government is very close to its 2015 goal.

She said, 'The Government seems to be on track with recruiting an additional 4,200 health visitors; however, it depends on a number of factors.'

Ms Amadi told Nursery World that retired health visitors are being asked to come back to the profession part-time and those that are considering retirement are being encouraged to stay on.

The need for a more comprehensive health visiting service was highlighted in a recent poll by charity 4Children and parenting club Bounty, which revealed that mothers want more continuity of care from health visitors and midwives during pregnancy and the months after the birth.

Of the 1,346 mothers surveyed, 17 per cent were disappointed with the support they received from their health visitor.

The charity's research suggested that mothers from low-income families are more likely to see health visitors for a shorter time after the birth of their baby than more affluent mothers.

It also revealed that a quarter of mothers-to-be found out information about pregnancy from a children's centre.

In light of the survey findings, 4Children has recommended that health visitors, along with midwives, be based at children's centres to provide joined-up support and referrals for those who need extra help.

However, Ms Amadi said that basing health visitors in children's centres would not always be practical.

'What is important is that families know health visitors by name, have a relationship with them, know what services and support they can get, and know where and how to access health visitors easily.'