Agenda item

The Health Partnerships Overview and Scrutiny Committee has asked for an update from NHS Brent on the progress that has been made to recruit additional health visitors in Brent. The Coalition Government has committed to the recruitment of an additional 4,200 health visitors in England by 2015, with recruitment to be locally led. The report addresses how this is being achieved in Brent.

Jo Ohlson introduced the item and explained that health visitors had been an important issue in Brent for a number of years and this service was significantly stretched.  Plans were being put together to improve the service and she referred to the London trajectories for health visiting in Brent in the next few years in the report which identified a need to increase the number of health visitors each year.  Members noted that NHS Brent had identified additional funding to support recruitment for the level required up to April 2013, which amounted to 44 posts, and this would involve both recruiting to vacancies and to additional posts.  Consideration was also being given as to how recruits could be found and Jo Ohlson advised that the shortage of health visitors was also a problem nationally.  In addition, Brent would need to have a greater increase in health visitors than both Harrow and Ealing because of projected population trends and this represented a significant challenge.

During discussion, Councillor Ogunro enquired why there was a shortage of health visitors in Brent.  Councillor Daly commented that she did not feel that Brent was any more challenging than other London boroughs and suggested that the management structure may be a more likely explanation as to why there was a problem in filling health visitor places.  She asked for information on the type of health visitors recruited and what salaries were being paid for these posts.  She also asked if there was to be training to increase the number of practice teachers.  Councillor Hunter suggested recruitment could be helped by emphasising that health visitors were key health workers.  She also sought clarification in the report in reference to a transition model for new delivery aligned with the emerging system architecture and responsibilities for commissioning and reasons as to why domestic violence had been categorised as red and why were there no benchmarks available for a number of areas.

The Chair commented that health visitors played an important role, particularly in respect of 0-5 years children and felt that the more health visitors there were, the greater number of families that would benefit from this.  She sought assurances that more health visitors could be recruited and retained.

In reply, Jo Ohlson felt that Brent was a challenging place for heath visitors and other reasons for the shortage could be attributed to focusing resources on safeguarding, an ageing workforce, the smaller London weighting in Brent and the overall lack of health visitors nationally.  It was noted that the number of practice teachers would need to double and Jo Ohlson would provide information on salary information at a later date, whilst Ealing Hospital NHS Trust could provide figures on their own health visitor recruitment.  However, every effort was being made to plan for the expansion of health visitors.  Jo Ohlson advised that although there was a large number of incidences of domestic violence recorded, it was felt that other areas of London may not be so thorough in recording them.

Phil Newby (Director of Strategy, Partnerships and Improvement) advised that Genny Renard, Head of Community Safety, could provide a written answer in respect of Councillor Hunter’s query with regard to domestic violence.  He explained that other London boroughs used varying methods of recording domestic violence.

Simon Bowen (Acting Director of Public Health, NHS Brent) added that it was more difficult to obtain information on community health issues because there was no national data set available.

The Chair requested that Ealing Hospital NHS Trust provide information in respect of health visitors recruitment to Andrew Davies.