Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many health visitors there have been in each region in each of the last five years.
NHS Digital publishes workforce statistics and the following table shows full time equivalent (FTE) qualified health visitors working in the National Health Service trusts and clinical commissioning groups in England from 31 July 2012 to 31 July 2017.
Current data collections do not cover the complete range of these organisations. As a result, it is not possible to provide accurate data on the total size of the health visitor workforce.
NHS Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS): Qualified Health Visitors working in each region as at 31 July each specified year (FTE).
Health visitors (FTE) | July 2012 | July 2013 | July 2014 | July 2015 | July 2016 | July 2017 |
Health Education East Midlands | 612 | 684 | 734 | 816 | 778 | 732 |
Health Education East of England | 507 | 554 | 644 | 763 | 732 | 630 |
Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex | 399 | 467 | 525 | 650 | 619 | 545 |
Health Education North Central and East London | 396 | 435 | 540 | 649 | 634 | 543 |
Health Education North East | 574 | 644 | 664 | 650 | 408 | 345 |
Health Education North West | 1,355 | 1,431 | 1,560 | 1,701 | 1,736 | 1,632 |
Health Education North West London | 342 | 410 | 451 | 493 | 488 | 492 |
Health Education South London | 336 | 307 | 365 | 447 | 430 | 358 |
Health Education South West | 466 | 557 | 528 | 624 | 396 | 372 |
Health Education Thames Valley | 330 | 310 | 340 | 385 | 365 | 324 |
Health Education Wessex | 335 | 377 | 439 | 519 | 495 | 481 |
Health Education West Midlands | 856 | 947 | 1,129 | 1,265 | 1,198 | 1,067 |
Health Education Yorkshire and the Humber | 879 | 943 | 909 | 983 | 1,106 | 927 |
Source: NHS Digital monthly HCHS workforce statistics
Note:
Health visitors may be employed by NHS provider organisations, but may also be employed directly by local authorities, or other care providers.