Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) full time equivalent and (b) actual health visitors have been employed in England in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The following table shows the number of full time equivalent (FTE) and actual headcount of health visitors employed by the National Health Service in England.
Date | FTE | Headcount |
September 2012 | 7,687 | 9,337 |
September 2013 | 8,304 | 9,983 |
September 2014 | 9,162 | 10,877 |
September 2015 | 10,236 | 12,105 |
September 2016 | 9,521 | 11,310 |
September 2017 | 8,497 | 10,171 |
September 2018 | 7,884 | 9,509 |
September 2019 | 6,981 | 8,445 |
September 2020 | 6,677 | 8,098 |
September 2021 | 6,279 | 7,593 |
Source: NHS Digital https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics/september-2021
Notes:
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the innovative workforce pilots announced in the Spending Review 2021 will test the value of continuity of care in health visiting services.
Answered by Maggie Throup
‘Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days’ recognised the importance of continuity of care to improve outcomes. The Government has announced £10 million to trial innovative workforce pilots in a small number of local authorities. Funding will be available to selected authorities to establish teams with a range of skills, under the clinical leadership of health visitors. As part of the design and evaluation of the trials, continuity of care will be considered to ensure there is a key point of contact for each family within the multidisciplinary team.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the innovative health visiting workforce pilots announced in the Spending Review 2021 will test the value of specialist perinatal or infant mental health health visitors within health visiting services.
Answered by Maggie Throup
We are investing in developing a diverse and highly skilled workforce by trialing and evaluating innovative workforce models. Funding will be available to five local authorities to establish teams with a range of skills under the clinical leadership of health visitors. These new roles within teams will be provided with specialist training where specific needs have been identified, such as perinatal mental health needs. The investment in trialing, evaluating and testing the value of different approaches will identify best practice models and ensure families receive the support they need.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the innovative health visiting workforce pilots announced in the Spending Review 2021 will run for long enough to allow approaches to be applied across families’ five health visitor contacts and to evaluate the impact of workforce models on children’s wellbeing and outcomes.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The workforce trials will run for two years. We will design a robust approach to evaluate the impact of this approach against key metrics, including the impact on the experience and wellbeing of families and babies. A range of areas will be selected to improve our understanding of what approaches work in different settings.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the innovative health visiting workforce pilots announced in the Spending Review 2021 will test the relative value of digital and face to face offerings in engaging disadvantaged families and identifying safeguarding incidents and developmental delay.
Answered by Maggie Throup
We will work closely with selected local authorities to design a robust approach to implementing and evaluating workforce models for health visiting teams to enable them to better support the needs of all families. This includes tailoring approaches to engage with the most disadvantaged families. We will invest in testing and evaluating different workforce models to understand the impact on the wellbeing of families and children as well as the capacity of the workforce to identify best practice.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the funding announced for parent and infant mental health in the Spending Review 2021 will be used to close the gaps in provision for children under two in children and young people’s mental health services.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
We have announced a £500 million investment to support babies and families, £100 million of which will focus on enhancing parent-infant mental health support. This will help promote the social and emotional development of babies. the social and emotional development of babies. Local areas will decide where this additional support should be allocated, which could form part of children and young people’s mental health services or elsewhere within the early years system such as within family hubs.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the £100 million announced for parent and infant mental health in the Spending Review 2021 will be spent on perinatal and/or infant mental health services within the NHS.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The investment will allow us to invest in a package of support for staff, training and interventions to support the social and emotional development of parents and infants from conception until a child’s second birthday. Service provision varies across the country according to need, therefore local areas will be given the opportunity to tailor their perinatal and parent-infant mental health support offer. Provision is likely to be a combination of support for perinatal mental health and infant mental health. Further details on the process for allocating funding for these services will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the funding announced for parent and infant mental health in the Spending Review 2021 will support the expansion of specialised parent-infant teams.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
We are working with leading academics, clinicians, Health Education England and NHS England and NHS Improvement to determine how this funding should be invested to support existing services. Further details will be confirmed in due course.