PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Health Visitors (2 February 2017)

The Government is committed to achieving good health outcomes for children and young people. Local authorities are responsible for commissioning appropriate public health services for 0-5 year olds in their areas, including health visiting.

Provision by local authorities of five universal health visitor reviews for children aged 0-5 was required by Regulations which came into force on 1 October 2015. The Department commissioned Public Health England (PHE) to undertake a review of the Regulations at 12 months.

PHE has completed the review of the mandating of universal health visiting services. The review was informed by looking at existing national and local statistics on health visiting service delivery and health and wellbeing outcomes for young children. In addition, feedback from a number of different stakeholder perspectives, including health visitors, was sought.

PHE’s report is informing next steps decisions about the service and the Department expects to announce these shortly and to publish the report.