Agenda item

To receive a report from the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Strategic Commissioning and Public Health and the Director of Public Health on the transformation of the Health Visiting Service, on which Members are invited to comment.

Mr M Gilbert, Interim Head of Public Health Commissioning, and Ms C Winslade, Acting Consultant onPublic Health, were in attendance for this item.

1.            Mr Gilbert introduced the report and corrected a reference made in the report to the community infant feeding service, advising the committee that this service was not yet integrated into the health visitor service and could not be so until the proposed move had been the subject of public consultation. Ms Winslade added that the aims of the programme were to fully integrate services and deliver savings and Mr Gilbert emphasised that the public health transformation programme, discussed in the previous agenda item, underpinned the proposed changes in all individual services.  Mr Scott-Clark added that, in the STP, work planned for children’s services had yet to start.  He emphasised the importance of the health visitor service as a vital link between the County Council’s public health role and GPs.

2.            Mr Gilbert, Ms Winslade and Mr Scott-Clark responded to comments and questions from Members, including the following:-

a)    the quality of the health visitor service was measured using a number of indicators, including the high satisfaction rates reported by service users.  Public consultation in 2015 had asked people what they most valued in such a service;

b)    a Member of the committee who had recently used the health visitor service reported the good experience she had had of it and supported its further development and growth;

c)    a detailed time study undertaken of the health visitor service as part of a piece of work to identify the capacity of the service could be supplied to Members outside the meeting or could be brought back to a future meeting of the committee;

d)    the quality of housing was known to be a major factor in determining a person’s health, and work with district councils was being planned to improve the quality of housing by using a selective licensing scheme;

e)    concern was expressed that some troubled families may not be willing to admit a health visitor to their home and thus may slip through the net, missing out on vital support that they much needed. Work with vulnerable families was starting in some areas of the county, and, it was hoped, would be extended to cover the whole county; 

f)     concern was expressed that the development of the health visitor service would need to be sustainable. The service was already good, but in the face of any future reductions in funding, it would need to be able to sustain its performance; and

g)    the move to place health visitors in children’s centres was welcomed and the roll-out of this model across the whole county was supported.  Mr Gilbert explained that the project had started at the Ashford Children’s Centre as the premises leant itself most easily to adaptation, and it was hoped that the joint arrangements there would be up and running by September 2017. The timescale and capacity to roll this out to all children’s centres had been difficult to identify, and it might be that not all centres had space to accommodate the health visitor service, although it was hoped this could be achieved, where possible, in the next twelve months or so.     

3.            Mr Oakford commented that, in his previous role as the Cabinet Member for Specialist Children’s Services, he had visited children’s centres across the county and met mothers and health visitors, so knew what an excellent service they delivered in supporting new mothers. From these visits he had learned that children’s centres staff went door-to-door and distributed leaflets to encourage young parents to come to their local centre.

4.         RESOLVED that the progress on the Health Visiting Transformation Programme be noted.