London council withdraws proposal to scrap health visitor budget

CYP Now reported yesterday (Thursday) that the London Borough of Harrow had mooted a proposal in its draft budget to slash all of its £3.23m health visiting spending in 2018/19, amid uncertainty over public health funding from central government.

But at a Cabinet meeting last night (Dec 10), councillors voted to remove the proposal from the budget.

A council spokesman said: “The health visiting budget line was withdrawn. We are undertaking a review of the service and still waiting for details about funding for the future. The politicians made the decision to take it out to avoid any ambiguity.

“At the moment there are no savings specified but we are still reviewing the service and still think efficiencies can be made but there are no figures on that.”

The decision was welcomed by the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association (CPHVA), which had spearheaded a campaign for Harrow to reconsider the proposals.

CPHVA professional officer Dave Munday said: “It is great news that they have taken that proposal off the table. We are really glad that they have listened to the concerns that were raised.

“We know that councils are in a difficult position due to the very poor settlement the government has already placed on public health. Councils shouldn’t have to make decisions in terms of which vital services they have to cut.”

Chancellor George Osborne announced in the Spending Review that public health funding will be cut by £200m from 2016/17 as part of efforts to reduce public debt.