Health visitor cuts put ‘children at risk of harm’

Hampshire County Council is looking to reduce its children and young people’s public health nursing service budget by £2.09m a year.

• Opinion: Message on first 1,001 days still not heard

• Related news: Overstretched health visitors 'unable to offer good support'

But the Institute of Health Visiting (IHV) and the School and Public Health Nurses Association (SAPHNA) say the move will reduce health visitors and nurses role in safeguarding children.

In letters written to the council and Public Health England, the two organisations say the cuts will “drastically cut the support available to families and strip out the mechanism to identify vulnerable children”.

Under the planned cuts, 47 posts will be lost, which equates to 12.5 per cent of the workforce, say the unions.

Children under five will receive one mandated face-to-face health review. In addition, children over the age of 11 will only be offered school nurse support digitally, they add.

There will also be “minimal school nursing statutory involvement in safeguarding and child protection”, said IHV and SAPHNA.

“We should all be worried about what’s happening in Hampshire,” said IHV exexcutive director Alison Morton.

“The proposed changes in Hampshire represent an important national test case, rather than an isolated outlier that only needs to be addressed locally.

“The national government’s response is that it’s down to local authorities to decide how they manage their budgets. Conversely, the local authorities’ perspective is that the cuts are due to a lack of government funding.

“Both are true – and the time has come to move beyond this stalemate and find a sustainable solution that puts babies, children, and their families first. Unless resolved, families ultimately bear the brunt of these cuts.”

Joint letters from @Alison_Morton2 & @SAPHNAsharonOBE to @PHE_uk & @hantsconnect warn national & local leaders that ongoing cuts to health visiting & school nursing services will put children at risk of harm. The time has come to resolve this stalemate https://t.co/xFs5VHM695

— iHV (@iHealthVisiting) July 1, 2021

Hampshire County Council is currently consulting on its council-wide budgetary plans for 2022 to 2024, including the proposed cuts to public health.

It’s Serving Hampshire, Balancing the Budget document details plans to slash its £52.3m public health budget by £4.4m. This also includes proposals to cut sexual health services as well as support to tackle substance misuse.

It concedes that under the plans “families would receive less support because of potential changes to services including health visiting and school nursing”.

The consultation is open until 18 July.

SAPHNA chief executive Sharon White said school and public health nurse services are “clearly seen as easy pickings” in budgetary decisions.

But this creates a “false economy” she says, that “serves to kick the can down the road, resulting in increased costs to services to say nothing of the long-term impacts on children’s and families’ lives”.

Hampshire County Council has been contacted for comment.