"Sad not to see the same health visitor"

Dear Jax77

Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback and I am sorry to hear your concerns.

I would firstly like to provide you with assurance that all the Health Visitors present in the clinics are trained and competent to the same high standard and as such have the ability to provide the same quality of service to the children and parents who attend.

I appreciate that it would be ideal if every contact with a Health Visitor was with the child’s named Health Visitor which would of course result in a very personable experience for both parent and the professional involved however due to demands on the service this is unfortunately not feasible.

Within the city of Hull our staff provide a Health Visiting service to the 32,000 resident children who are under five years of age. The service provides all of the core contacts as recommended within the Healthy Child programme which consist of the ante-natal contact, new birth visit, six to eight week contact, seven to twelve month assessment, and two to two and a half year assessment where we endeavour to ensure that it is the Child’s named Health Visitor who undertakes these assessments and this will continue.

Our Health Visitors run approximately 40 Child health clinics of varying sizes over a period of a week therefore I am sure you will appreciate that along with covering for other commitments such as safeguarding meetings, annual leave, sickness and so forth this aspect of our service provision requires a different approach if we are to ensure that every child who attends one of these clinics receives the same high quality of service

Taking all of this into account and in order to accommodate the large number of children at some of these clinics it has become necessary to develop a fair and equitable rota system.

It is the normal practice following each clinic contact that a detailed liaison slip is forwarded to the Child’s named Health Visitor who inputs it into the records and as such is updated on that specific child’s progress. It is also practice where a child or family are identified at the clinic as requiring ongoing support or further intervention then this would automatically come back to the named Health Visitor to provide.

In addition, the parents of each child under five years old within the city have the contact details for their named Health Visitor and as such are invited to ring them if they wish to discuss any matters which arise concerning either their child or themselves in relation to developmental issues, physical or emotional wellbeing or for general information. To try and cover all eventualities we also have a duty Health Visitor within each team available from 8.30 to 5pm Monday to Fridays who is available to takes calls, give advice and provide general support if the child’s named Health Visitor is out on calls or elsewhere at the time of the call.

I sincerely hope that the explanation above is reassuring for you and that you are aware that as service providers with limited resources we constantly strive to provide a quality, equitable, accessible service to our clients and as such have an impact on the positive outcomes for the children of this city.