Health visitor pledge welcomed
Cathy Wallace
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Unions have welcomed Health Secretary Alan Johnson's announcement at the recent Labour Party conference that more health visitors and midwives are on the cards.
During his conference speech last week, Johnson pledged to train more midwives and said the government has planned for an extra 1,000 by 2009. He added: "We will need more specialist nurses and health visitors to tackle public health issues in deprived communities."
The announcement comes as health workers' unions including Unite have been calling for more health visitors to be trained and put into the community, including in children's centres.
Unite says NHS statistics show that one health visitor post a day is being lost. The union also argues there has been a 40 per cent reduction in health training places in England during 2006/07.
Kevin Coyne, head of health at Unite, said: "Health visiting has taken a battering in recent years, so it is going to take a lot of work to even return to the status quo of two years ago. But I am confident that a new chapter for health visiting could be opening."
Responding to Johnson's announcement, he added: "This is a very welcome statement and we look forward to working with the Health Secretary and his ministerial team to achieve this increase in health visiting and specialist nurses working in areas of serious disadvantage."
Johnson recently spoke out about the need for more health visitors in children's centres, saying they were the first port of call for many parents (CYP Now, 12-18 September 2007).
