Health visitors call for limits on 'impossible' 1,000-family caseloads

Health visitors call for limits on 'impossible' 1,000-family caseloadsJust nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleMarthe de FerrerandVanessa Clarke,Senior education reporterBBCLimits should be introduced on the "unmanageable" caseloads of health visitors in England, with some now responsible for more than 1,000 families each, the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) has said.The number of health visitors - qualified nurses or midwives who support families with very young children - has almost halved in the last decade.In January, the Health and Social Care Committee said the government would fail in its ambition to give every child the best start in life, unless it took urgent action to rebuild the workforce.The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) says the government is "committed to strengthening health visiting services".Emma Dolan, a health visitor with Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust in Hull, says her "top priorities" are to spot potential issues early, and offer advice to parents on things like their baby's wellbeing and sleep to prevent problems arising later."We want our babies to live long and happy lives [by] giving that support nice and early and making sure that families know what services are out there."However, BBC analysis has shown the number of health visitors in England has fallen from 10,200 a decade ago, to 5,575 in January - a drop of 45%.During the pandemic, health visitors in almost two-thirds of hospital trusts were redeployed by the NHS, a decision that was deemed "fundamentally flawed" during the Covid inquiry last year.Although health visitor reviews with families have broadly returned to pre-pandemic levels, the reduction of staff means health visitors are taking on an increasing number of families.In other UK nations, there are safe staffing limits - of about 250 caseloads per health visitor - but that has not been applied in England. iHV chief Alison Morton says f...