Rebuilding Health Visiting and Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life

Chair: Jennie Rigg; Aide; Baroness Pinnock; Hall Aide: Dr Chris Adams (Vice Chair, FCC)

Submitted by: Twickenham & Richmond 
Mover: Cllr Tam Langley 
Summation: Sarah Olney MP

Conference notes that:

1. The first 1,001 days of a child’s life are critical to lifelong physical health, mental health, educational attainment and life chances.
2. Health visitors provide a universal frontline public health service for babies, young children and families, playing a vital role in:
   1. Safeguarding children and preventing childhood accidents and unintentional injuries.
   2. Preventing unnecessary visits to Accident & Emergency (with babies under 12 months having the highest rate of A&E attendance).
   3. Supporting infant feeding.
   4. Identifying and supporting infant and early child mental health issues.
   5. Identifying developmental delay.
   6. Reducing health inequalities.
   7. Relieving pressure on GPs, hospitals and social care.
3. The Institute of Health Visiting’s 2024 UK Survey Report, From Disparity to Opportunity: The case for rebuilding health visiting, found:
   1. Rising levels of poverty, perinatal mental illness and complex family needs.
   2. Major regional inequalities in access to support.
   3. Severe workforce shortages.
   4. Unsafe caseloads in many areas.
   5. Growing concern among practitioners about safeguarding risks.
4. The number of health visitors in England has fallen dramatically since 2015, despite increasing demand for support.
5. There is a significant disparity in health visiting provision between England and the other nations of the UK.
6. Government has prioritised childcare subsidies for working families, which have grown exponentially in recent years, while budgets for health visiting, healthy baby services and other early intervention services have fallen in real terms.
7. Liberal Democrats have consistently championed prevention, early intervention, mental health support, tackling health inequalities and investment in community healthcare services.
8. Investing in early years support delivers substantial longterm savings through reduced pressure on acute NHS services, children’s social care, education support services and the criminal justice system.
9. There are arguments that workforce planning should be sufficient to reduce or reverse the need for skill mix and the expectation is that health visitors do more than the statutory offer.
10. The DHSC 2026 Healthy Child Programme guidance on commissioning public health nursing services introduces new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the delivery of health visiting services (ages 0 to 5), which include, for example, additional non-face-to-face contacts that are not part of the statutory offer.

Conference believes that:

1. Every child deserves the best possible start in life, regardless of family income or postcode.
2. Prevention and early intervention are essential to improving public health and reducing long-term costs to public services.
3. A strong universal health visiting service is a cornerstone of an effective early years and prevention strategy.
4. Families should receive consistent, relationship-based support from qualified health visitors with manageable caseloads.
5. Persistent regional disparities in health visiting provision are unacceptable and contribute directly to widening inequalities.

Conference calls for:

1. A national strategy to rebuild the health visiting workforce, including:
   1. Expanded training places.
   2. Funding for further substantive posts.
   3. Funded return-to-practice schemes.
   4. Improved retention measures.
   5. Workforce planning based on population need, ensuring ongoing continued professional development and a quality-assured programme of training for the workforce.
2. The introduction of nationally recognised safe caseload guidance to protect both families and practitioners.
3. Increased and ring-fenced public health funding for local authorities to restore and strengthen universal health visiting services, and for the national rollout of the Healthy Babies programme.
4. A renewed commitment to the Healthy Child Programme, delivered as intended to the expected standards, ensuring that all families receive the full schedule of mandated reviews and evidence-based support.
5. Greater integration between health visiting, maternity services, mental health services, best start family hubs, early years education and children’s social care.
6. The new KPIs should clarify that the practitioner undertaking the statutory offer visit should be a qualified health visitor, not other registered nurses or practitioners.
7. Targeted investment in areas of highest deprivation and the need to reduce inequalities in child health and development outcomes.
8. Enhanced access to specialist support through health visiting teams for:
   1. Perinatal mental health.
   2. Domestic abuse.
   3. Infant feeding.
   4. Speech and language and child development.
   5. Parent-infant relationship support.
   6. Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, additional needs and neurodiversity.
   7. Homelessness and temporary accommodation.
   8. Families experiencing poverty.
9. The collection and publication of robust national data on health visitor numbers, caseloads, outcomes and service access.
10. Recognition of health visiting as a key part of the Liberal Democrat commitment to shift healthcare towards prevention, community services and early intervention.

Conference further calls on Liberal Democrat parliamentarians to campaign for:

1. Cross-government action to reduce child poverty and improve family wellbeing.
2. Long-term and increased investment in early years services as part of a preventive approach to healthcare and social policy.
3. Better implementation of the ‘Giving every child the best start in life’ strategy by increasing overall funding, extinguishing the postcode lottery (only 75 areas currently get healthy babies funding) and urgently tackling the workforce strategies in health visiting.

Applicability: England

Mover: 5 minutes; all other speakers: 3 minutes. For eligibility and procedure for speaking in this debate, see page 10 of the agenda. You can submit a speaker's card online here or in person.

The deadline for amendments to this motion is 13.00 Monday 7 September; see pages 11-12 of the agenda for more information.

Those selected for debate will be printed in Conference Extra and Saturday’s Conference Daily. The deadline for requests for separate votes is 09.00 Thursday 17 September; see page 9 of the agenda for more information.