Children's health worker roles under threat in Leicestershire

Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust has launched a consultation among staff over plans to slash the roles as part of its requirement to cut running costs each year.

The union Unite understands that around 12 community nursery nurse roles, plus 30 hours a week of infant feeding support work will disappear.

The decision has come as the trust reveals its latest figures as part of the government's drive to recruit 4,200 extra health visitors nationally by the end of this parliament. The trust says over the last two years it has recruited 100 new health visitors.

But a Unite spokesperson said: “Over the years the community nurse and infant feeding roles have been a vital part of our service. At our recent branch meeting the overwhelming concern was the detrimental effect these changes will have on clients.”

The spokesperson added that the community nursery nurses that will remain are bracing themselves for excessive workloads and will be forced to focus on group sessions rather than home visits.

“They have also been especially important for supporting hard-to-reach clients, particularly in black and minority ethnic communities. Many nursery nurses are from these communities and also act as interpreters for those who do not speak English. They have been delivering nutrition work and looking at speech and language issues. With a reduced role the trust will have to hire in interpreters and it will be far harder to support hard-to-reach groups,” the spokeswoman added.

In a statement the trust has said: “As an NHS service we are required to reduce the cost of running our services by five per cent every year. Although this will not affect our health visitors, we are looking at how we can use the increased health visiting workforce to better support the early health outcomes of all children.
 
“We are currently consulting staff on new models of working that would reduce the number of community nursery nurse posts, infant feeding co-ordinators and management posts within the health visiting service.

“This will not result in the reduction of the number or quality of contacts our parents receive from the health visiting service, or in the support we provide community groups and partner agencies.”

The consultation on the staff changes is set to close at the end of February.