Published: 09 February 2007
40% cut in Health Visitor Training Places
The government’s public health goals are being ‘seriously sabotaged’ by the 40% cut in the number of health visitors being trained in England this year.
New figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, by Amicus/Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association (CPHVA) revealed more than three-quarters of the Higher Education Establishments (HEIs) surveyed reported cuts in training places.
Ultimately 33 (76%) of the 43 HEIs contacted responded
The numbers of health visitors trained in 2005-6 was 554, but in 2006 -7, this had dropped to 329 – a 40% cut.
This was despite 798 potential students applying for places at the HEIs for 2006-7. The figures for school nurse training are also bleak.
The reasons for this decline are: strategic health authorities stopping commissioning the Specialist Community Public Health Nurse (SCPHN) courses and primary care trusts (PCTs) pleading poverty.
Karen Reay, Amicus/CPHVA director said:
“These dramatic cuts in health visitor training are seriously sabotaging the government’s public health programme which we have strongly supported.
Ministers can no longer act like Pontius Pilate and wash their hands of the crisis by saying that: ‘It is up to the PCTs how they spend their money’.
Ministers need to ensure that funds for health visitor and school nurse training are ‘ring fenced’ - it is that simple”.
School nurse places were down by 10%, with 175 trained in 2005-6 and 156 in 2006-7. A total of 218 potential students applied to the HEIs in 2006-7.
Four HEIs were unable to run courses for health visitors in 2006-7. Five did not run courses for school nurses.
The number of health visitors fell to 9,809 whole time equivalents (WTE) for England in 2005 – a 12-year low.
Karen Reay continued:
“Health visitors are in the frontline when it comes to providing such services as diagnosing postnatal depression which affects 100,000 women a year; advising on immunisations, and unfortunately, often being the first health professional to detect child abuse.
They are doing exactly what the government wants – and more.
There are now more applicants for health visitor training than places currently available – so much for strategic planning”.
It was only in the autumn last year that Tony Blair was challenged (see Vision or Just More Spin? related article below and quote from speech) to spell out where the extra health visitors were to come from to implement his new social vision to prevent babies and young children being ‘at risk’.
Extract from Tony Bair’s Speech - Our Nation's Future - Social Exclusion (5 September 2006):
Again for example, midwives and health visitors already routinely screen and visit new born children - though at present the middle classes tend to ask for, and therefore get, more follow-up help.
Under the new arrangements, health visitors and midwives will seek to identify those most at risk, most simply by asking young parents or parents to be about difficulties they may be having, or about their own background. This can be supplemented by information from other public services, where we need to break down barriers to sharing data.
For those who are identified at risk, the health visitor or Children's Centre worker will engage in a more detailed assessment to clarify and confirm the level of need. For those identified as being most at risk (around 10-15 per cent of all first born), a two-year home visiting programme will be put in place.
Further information
CPHVA website
DH Review of Health Visiting
Related articles
Council injects Cash to save Community Health
Vision or Just More Spin?
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