Minister admits more must be done to hit health visitor target

In February, the Department of Health published proposals promising to recruit the extra 4,200 health visitors on top of the 8,092 practising in England as of May 2010.

But CYP Now revealed earlier this month that the overall number of health visitors in the country has dropped by 213 to 7,879 since the launch of the recruitment drive.

Speaking at the Unite/Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association (CPHVA) annual conference, Anne Milton told delegates that government must do more to encourage strategic health authorities (SHAs) and primary care trusts (PCTs) to train and recruit the health visitors needed to meet the target.

"I was really disappointed at the recent figures showing fewer health visitors than we’d hoped," she said. "I could easily patronise you by blaming the last government or making excuses but I will not.

"I will say that we are making a difference though. Numbers will rise this year, but doing this is like turning around a tanker at sea. It’s slow and laborious, and is going to take sustained and concerted efforts at every level."

Despite this, Milton said that training places for health visitors are increasing at a promising rate.

"Health visitor training commissions were up threefold this autumn, compared to last year," she said. "There are 545 health visitors completing their training this autumn, almost 300 more than there were three years ago, and we’ve been assured that the jobs will be available for them. But I am under no illusions; we definitely need to work harder with the SHAs and PCTs to get more health visitors on the ground."

Unite’s lead professional officer Obi Amadi argued that the biggest barrier to increasing health visitor numbers are "bottlenecks" in the funding streams available to health trusts.

"Ideally, we would like the extra cash for health visitor recruitment to be ringfenced, but, if that’s not possible, the SHAs need to give this funding the highest priority," she said. "The tide has turned, but we need to see the improvement physically, by increased numbers on the ground, but that’s not happening yet."