Health Visitor Services

For more information on this consultation please click here.

We asked

We asked for your views about the health visiting, school nursing and family nurse partnership services especially about how you access them and what you found helpful or unhelpful about your contact with these services.

The questionnaire was open from November 2017 to February 2018 and was a combination of online and face to face questionnaire completion.

The survey provided information on 5 key areas:

• The level of engagement between service users and the health services currently available
• The quality of service that service users receive
• What stakeholders and service users feel the strengths and areas for development are
• What the key public health issues facing service users are
• Whether stakeholders understand the needs and experience of their service users.

You said

In total 450 questionnaires were completed by service users and stakeholders of the services.

Some of the key findings from the feedback were:

Health visiting

79% of respondents would describe their experience as ‘good or very good’ and 82% would recommend the health visiting service

65% of the respondents felt that they needed to repeat their story with each person that they see

70% feel that following support from these different organisations they feel that their families can thrive in future

Service users most value:

• Face to face contact
• Having specific questions answered
• Having their worries and concerns listened to

Family nurse partnership

97% of family nurse partnership respondents would recommend it to a friend

100% of respondents rated family nurse partnership as ‘good or very good’

School nursing

70% of respondents agreed that they were treated with respect, were given enough time to discuss their concerns and found the advice given helpful

The top three issues that young people contact a school nurse for

1. Healthy eating
2. Support with increasing physical activity
3. Advice on helping to stop accidents / injuries

The top three issues that parents / carers contact a school nurse for

1. Heathy eating
2. Emotional feelings
3. School absence due to illness

We did

As a result of the feedback received commissioners have negotiated with the provider, Central London Community Healthcare Trust, a new model to deliver the healthy child programme for children 0 – 19 from the health visiting and school nursing services. This includes some important changes to the service that will be delivered from April 2019.

Health visitors will be seeing all mothers during the antenatal period to assess their needs when they have their baby and provide advice about being new parents.

Health visiting teams will see parents when their baby is 6 – 8 weeks old to enquire about mother’s health and how the baby is being fed and is developing.

Health visiting teams will be providing, with the children centres, health promotion groups on topics like introducing solids; attachment with your baby; minor illnesses care and sleep management.

School nurses will be providing drop in’s in all secondary schools half termly for young people to seek a school nurses advice

School nurse teams will be delivering PSHE on topics relevant to the young people in the school

School nurse teams will be more available for helping young people with sexual health questions and providing emergency contraception if required.

Family nurse partnership will continue to deliver knowledge and skills training around teenage parenting

Family nurse partnership team have widened their criteria for referrals to include up to 24 years where appropriate.

You can read more information in the feedback here and the full report here.