Health visiting
What does a health visitor do?
Health visitors play a crucial role in giving newborn children the best start in life and support their families in being able to deliver this.
We help families during those early years of a child’s life, which can have a profound impact on the lifelong health and wellbeing of young children and their families.
In this video a Health visitor explains the role of health visitors and the support they offer to new parents
We also lead on the delivery of the early years elements of the Healthy Child Programme in partnership with other services. This includes:
- an antenatal contact after 28 weeks for the parent(s) to be
- a new birth visit to the parent(s)/carer(s) and new baby by 14 days postnatal
- a review at 6-8 weeks
- developmental reviews by 1 year and 2 and a half years of age
How you can see a member of the health visiting team
- at an appointment clinic – book via the relevant Public Health Nursing hub or practitioner. Most appointments now take place in appointment clinics. These are located in a variety of community venues and enable you to see the right practitioner for your needs at that time
- at our Family Focus sessions
- by home based appointment (where required)
- at multi-agency meeting
- at a specialist clinic, for example, infant feeding specialist clinic (referral via health visitor)
All points of contact will allow for a review of any family health concerns and work with you to plan how additional support can be accessed if required.
The first year of your child’s life
Our health visiting team have put together some useful information on some key areas of your baby’s development over the first year: