Union urges health visitor recruitment drive to continue

The warning comes as latest figures suggest the coalition government is likely to miss its 2010 pledge to recruit 4,200 more health visitors in England by May 2015.

While welcoming the significant boost in health visitor numbers over the last five years, Dave Munday, professional officer for the Unite union and Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association (CPHVA), warned that the figures could plummet unless the next government puts in place a fresh implementation plan to boost recruitment.

He says a key issue the next government will need to face is the prospect of a high number of health visitors retiring. Latest research from Unite shows the proportion of health visitors aged over 65 is growing, indicating that many have been put off retirement while they support the recent influx of new, younger recruits.

Munday added: “What the implementation plan did was to remove us from the cliff edge but because of the high number of older health visitors without further recruitment there is a risk that that cliff edge will return.”

Cheryll Adams, director of the Institute of Health Visiting, estimates that an additional 400 to 500 new health visitors will continue to be needed each year to avert a fall in numbers.

She said: “It would be naïve not to continue to invest in health visitor recruitment. The way to do that is to look at caseload sizes. If you have a caseload size of 200 you will have much more impact than if the caseload is 500.”

Figures released by government data provider the Health and Social Care Information Centre shows that as of December 2014 there were 10,738 whole-time equivalent health visitors. This is a 13 per cent increase on the previous year, but still 1,554 short of the coalition’s pledge to recruit an additional 4,200 from the 2010 baseline figure of 8,092.

Further figures released by Public Health England's director of nursing Viv Bennett last month estimated that by 1 April, there would be 4,000 qualified whole-time equivalent health visitors in post and 900 student health visitors in their final stages of training.

Munday says latest estimates based on those who are expected to qualify during April indicate the government will miss its May 2015 target by only around 120.

In an open letter to health professionals based on the latest health visitor recruitment programme figures, Bennett said: “The programme has delivered what is thought to be the biggest percentage professional growth ever achieved in the NHS in this timescale.”