HUDDERSFIELD has one of the lowest health visitor rates for its population in the country, it emerged today.
And the profession is facing a crisis as numbers have hit a 13-year low, a union official said.
His comments came as figures for Kirklees revealed that each full-time health visitor in the area has an average of 532 children under the age of five on their caseload. The numbers highlight a massive drop in available health visitors on last year, when each worker would have 396 youngsters.
Now with a 40% reduction in training places nationally and 20% of health visitors approaching retirement, there are fears over the profession’s future.
Dave Munday, professional officer for the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association, said: “It is about supporting families through a very difficult time. Having a child should be the happiest time in people’s lives, but for some it can be very difficult.
“We believe health visitors make such a massive difference to families that can really impact on future generations.
“But they feel sad at the fact they can’t do the job that certain families deserve.
“They are having to do a job that is as difficult as it has always been, but they are having to do it with less staff and under more pressure.
“They feel they are drowning with so much work.”
In the latest figures from 2006, Kirklees Primary Care Trust was ranked 100th in a league table of 140 trusts showing the number of children dealt with by every health visitor.
Doncaster PCT was rated the best area in the survey – by the Family and Parenting Institutes – with 160 children per health visitor. While Redbridge PCT in Essex was the worst with 1,142 per worker.
Dave, who has worked as a health visitor himself, added: “We want to develop citizens in the country who have strong family relationships, and health visitors are key to doing that work.
“Every family has needs when they have a baby. We need to support them through that period because research has shown that children who have a good first few weeks of life have better futures.”
He said parenting, child development, postnatal depression and domestic violence were among the issues health visitors focused on to support families.
But he feared positions were being axed around the country to help PCTs reduce costs.
In Kirklees, health visiting services were revamped earlier this year to form locality-based teams to replace the old system where professionals worked alongside GP surgeries.
This saw numbers drop from 50 to just 47 health visitors. At the start of 2006, there were 65.
The national concerns were discussed in Huddersfield last week when around 40 Yorkshire professionals met to consider new Government plans to reform health visiting.
The review document – Facing the Future – is currently being considered by the Department of Health and highlights the need to offer most services to families with the most needs.
