Half of health visitors (51%) are struggling to deliver essential health checks to families with children due to understaffing and a lack of funding, meaning vital health support is being missed.
Our survey of health visitors and school nurses working in England shows only 57% of health visitors say their service currently offers all mandated health visiting contacts, such as advice on illness prevention, feeding, safe sleeping, home safety, accident prevention, and child nutrition.
Meanwhile, nearly three-quarters (73%) of school nurses believe workforce shortages are having a major negative impact on the support available to children and young people.
Health visitors and school nurses support babies, children and young people, and their families, in protecting their health across a range of areas, including physical and mental health, and are central to preventing ill health into adulthood.
We’re warning the Westminster government that the failure to invest in key children’s nursing roles – specifically health visitors and school nurses – will lead to serious long-term public health problems. We’re urging ministers to unite the public around new investment to boost the workforce and protect children’s health.
One health visitor surveyed told us: “Health visiting is very different now to how it was when I first started. We are reactive rather than proactive. Very little time is spent on public health promotion. Safeguarding is at unprecedented levels and cases are far more complex. Staffing levels are a joke.”
A school nurse said: “It just feels that we are delivering our role with one hand tied behind our back and are expected to continually make concessions to what we are able to deliver due to lack of funding.”
RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger, said: “When the government fails to invest in prevention, it is only storing up costly problems for the future.
“There is no hidden army of health visitors and school nurses waiting in the wings to ensure families, children and young people get the right care, when they need it. There are no clinical professionals better placed to help improve health outcomes, but they need the support of government.
“The clock is now ticking for government to provide the investment needed to grow the health visitor and school nursing workforce and deliver on the promised shift from sickness to prevention.”
We’re urging the Westminster government to rapidly expand the health visiting and school nursing workforce, and to provide the necessary funding to restore the public health grant to at least its 2015 levels.
There must be ringfenced funding for children’s services and support for universities to expand health visiting and school nursing courses and placements.
