Health visitor roadshows to showcase the profession

Published: 18 January 2013

The Royal College of Nursing and the Department of Health are staging a series of roadshows with the aim of encouraging nurses to become health visitors.

The free roadshows, which are taking place throughout January and February 2013, will allow nurses to learn about health visiting from a local health visitor and discover more about training and career opportunities.

Health visiting is a diverse and rewarding career that involves building relationships with children, families and communities. For example, health visitors play a vital role in a child’s development by detecting emotional, mental and physical health problems early on. In particular, they lead and deliver the Healthy Child Programme, providing services covering pregnancy and the first five years of life.

They also make a large contribution to managing the long term effects of serious public health problems such as smoking, alcohol and obesity within families. Preventative work carried out by health visitors can save the NHS money by reducing the likelihood of emergency admissions to hospital.

Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive & General Secretary of the RCN, said:

“Health visitors make a significant impact on the health of young children, families and communities. They play a vital role in disease prevention and the early identification of health and social problems as well as carrying out a range of measures which have a lifelong positive impact on the health and quality of life of children. The RCN welcomes the opportunity to work closely with the Government in hosting these roadshows and would strongly encourage nurses interested in becoming health visitors to attend.”

Pauline Watts, Professional Officer for Health Visiting at the DH said:
“This is an exciting time to consider a career in health visiting. How many careers give nurses an opportunity to influence the lives of so many and to work with children, families and communities, to improve health and well being outcomes today and for future generations to come? We want the very best to step up to the challenge.”

CASE STUDY

Helen Simpson is a health visitor with Community Services Wandsworth, part of St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust, in London. She splits her time between working as a regular health visitor and as a specialist health visitor for breast feeding. Her work can entail new birth visits, visits at six weeks to assess mothers and at eight months and two years to check the child. In between, there are child health clinics, breast feeding groups and post-natal groups covering first aid and child development as well as daily telephone support. Health visitors are also in close contact with GPs and family support workers. They receive police reports in cases of domestic abuse as well as accident and emergency reports for children for under five.

Helen’s strategic work within breastfeeding entails setting up services such as breast feeding groups, training staff, running health promotion stands in south London, and establishing a volunteer peer support programme.

She says:

“It’s a really rewarding job – working with the clients is the best part. You can also go into a variety of different roles. I like the home visits and everyone is generally really grateful to see you and values the support they get. For example, last week I got the most wonderful card from one of the families who had just moved out of my area. The baby had a hole in the heart and we had been giving them a lot of support. She sent me a lovely thank you card and while the job can be very stressful, things like that make it really worthwhile.”