Helping to deliver the health visiting vision

In 2010, the government announced its intention to increase the number of health visitors by 50 per cent by 2015, a total of 6000, taking account of replacing retirees. The Health Visitor Implementation Plan was launched in February this year detailing how this would be achieved, and providing the new vision for health visiting practice.

For many health visitors it was reassuring that the vision reflected their core beliefs about how their public health practice should be delivered, with interventions not only at the child and family level, but also by working in partnership with communities and other organisations, and with a societal public health focus.