Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of health visitors (a) in England, (b) regionally and (c) in each local authority area in each year since September 2009.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics for England. These include only staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups, but not staff working in primary care, local authorities or other providers. Some other organisations also provide health visiting services, so the data held by the Department only reflects part of the picture on overall health visitor numbers.
The following table shows the full time equivalent (FTE) figures for health visitors for England and for each Health Education England region as at 30 September in the specified years:
| 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
England | 8,100 | 7,849 | 7,802 | 7,687 | 8,304 | 9,162 | 10,236 | 9,521 | 8,497 | 7,884 |
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East Midlands | 619 | 615 | 631 | 630 | 685 | 741 | 826 | 791 | 742 | 619 |
East of England | 784 | 778 | 698 | 522 | 594 | 668 | 777 | 744 | 663 | 628 |
Kent, Surrey and Sussex | 553 | 518 | 507 | 420 | 469 | 550 | 671 | 635 | 562 | 519 |
North Central and East London | 384 | 403 | 389 | 406 | 433 | 553 | 670 | 630 | 443 | 427 |
North East | 488 | 501 | 571 | 596 | 659 | 673 | 672 | 422 | 346 | 166 |
North West | 1,386 | 1,329 | 1,317 | 1,414 | 1,463 | 1,602 | 1,793 | 1,733 | 1,674 | 1,586 |
North West London | 298 | 237 | 237 | 351 | 425 | 470 | 511 | 506 | 498 | 510 |
South London | 444 | 434 | 430 | 361 | 334 | 388 | 458 | 420 | 366 | 328 |
South West | 663 | 663 | 599 | 452 | 599 | 565 | 619 | 412 | 370 | 312 |
Thames Valley | 337 | 324 | 307 | 348 | 336 | 347 | 389 | 364 | 324 | 275 |
Wessex | 326 | 308 | 323 | 360 | 394 | 457 | 554 | 514 | 489 | 446 |
West Midlands | 889 | 872 | 895 | 918 | 1,039 | 1,197 | 1,287 | 1,237 | 1,091 | 1,027 |
Yorkshire and the Humber | 929 | 867 | 898 | 908 | 875 | 953 | 1,009 | 1,113 | 929 | 1,041 |
Source: NHS HCHS monthly workforce statistics, NHS Digital
NHS Digital began to collect and publish data on staff, including health visitors, in some English independent sector healthcare organisations, from September 2015. These statistics are collected biannually and published as experimental statistics. The following table shows the FTE figures of health visitors employed by Independent Healthcare Providers in England who provide valid data, as at 30 September each year since 2015 and the latest data available:
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 31 March 2018 |
England | 957 | 1,132 | 1,240 | 1,187 |
Source: Independent Healthcare Provider Workforce Statistics, England, March 2018, NHS Digital
Information is not held centrally on number of health visitors in each local authority area.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number and proportion of babies that had not received the mandatory 12-month health check when they were (a) 12 months, (b) 15 months, (c) 18 months and (d) 24 months old in (i) England and (ii) in each local authority or Clinical Commissioning Group area in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Health visitor service delivery metrics are published by Public Health England (PHE) on a quarterly and annual basis. This collection is based on a voluntary submission of aggregate data by local authorities.
As regulations require that the one year review is completed by the time the child turns 15 months, information on 12 months old and 15 months old is available. There is no national data collection for reviews which are carried out late (such as 18 months or 24 months).
The attached tables show the number of children who had not received their one year health check at 12 months and 15 months in England and in each local authority. This is based on data received by PHE covering the period April to June 2018 (Quarter 1 2018/19).
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of (a) online and (b) offline bullying on the incidence of suicide among children and young people.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Department does not hold information on the number of suicides by people aged 10-19 years of age as a result of online bullying.
However, the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, which is commissioned by NHS England and supported by the Department, published a thematic review in 2016, Suicide by Children and Young People in England. A copy of the report is available at the following link:
http://www.hqip.org.uk/resources/report-suicide-by-children-and-young-people-in-england/
The report identified ten common themes relating to suicides by people under 20 years of age between 2014 and 2015, including bullying (online and face-to-face) and suicide-related internet use.