Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reverse the fall in the number of health visitors.

Since October 2015, local authorities have been responsible for the commissioning of services for zero to five-year olds and as such, they determine the required numbers of health visitors based upon local needs.

A Specialist Community and Public Health Nurse apprenticeship (Level 7) is currently in development. This will offer an alternative route directly into the health visiting profession. There are also nursing apprenticeship pathways currently in place to become a Registered Nurse, following which an individual has the option to choose to complete a postgraduate course to go onto qualify as a health visitor.

The interim People Plan, published in June 2019, sets out the vision for people who work in the National Health Service to enable them to deliver the long-term plan. There is also clear commitment to work with partners to identify how to support growth in the community workforce including district nursing, general practice nursing, health visitors and school nursing.