Primary care organisations are increasingly relocating health visitors, traditionally based at GP practices, to community-based units known as geographical teams. Some have also been moved to target areas of need under the Sure Start programme.
But at the British Medical Association's national conference for local medical committees, which represent GPs across the country, GPs voted overwhelmingly that health visitors and district nurses "should always be attached to practices".
GPs unanimously supported motions to "deplore the move towards the separation, both physically and managerially, of nursing and other teams from general practice".
Dr Kebsi Naidoo, chairman of Sefton Medical Committee, one of the committees that raised the motion, said GPs feared child protection concerns or illness could be missed if health visitors were separated from primary care health teams.
He said: "If children are on the borderline of being at risk on the child protection register they may not be picked up if the health visitor is based elsewhere. Locating health visitors in satellite locations could result in a communication breakdown."
He said children were unlikely to return to get a condition double-checked if they had to travel again for a second appointment with the GP or health visitor, rather than if the GP and health visitor were located together.
But Fiona Smith, children and young people's advisor at the Royal College of Nursing, said good information sharing was possible regardless of where professionals were located, and that it was not just a matter of "popping your head round the door".
She said the key point was that health visitors should be located in areas that facilitated the easiest access to children and young people, regardless of whether this was at a GP practice or community-based unit.
Mark Jones, director of the Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association, also disagreed with a blanket approach and said there was no "one-size-fits-all" solution.
He said health visitors could make more use of their skills based in teams or at children's centres or extended schools.
"In major government policy directives such as the public health white paper the emphasis is on becoming healthier in a neighbourhood family context from a locality base, rather than working from a surgery where the focus is around an individual person in an individual context."
