Increasing health visitor quotas is leading to burnout and job losses

Abstract

Newly trained health visitors and their mentors need greater support in coping with overwhelming caseloads amid fears they are on the brink of burnout, community practitioners warned last week. Addressing the Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association (CPHVA) conference last week, chief nursing officer for England Jane Cummings said the government is ‘on track’ with its plan to recruit 4,200 health visitors by 2015. But concerns remain about how the government’s health visitor plan is being implemented and what will happen after 2015. Unite professional officer Obi Amadi, a member of the government’s health visiting taskforce, told the conference: ‘We know many health visitors are due to retire and they may do so because their work is challenging. They need support.’ Health visitors and clinical practice teachers, who are assigned to mentor students on placements, spoke of the increasing pressure they are under as a result of the influx of newly qualified health visitors. Addressing the conference from the floor, a clinical lead for health visiting, who did not want to be named, said many clinical practice teachers are so busy that they are supporting student health visitors in their own time. She said: ‘We are increasingly seeing burnout among clinical practice teachers. They have to balance students’ needs with those of patients – and obviously patient needs come first.’ Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust set up a 12-month preceptorship programme for new health visitors last year to ensure they are fully prepared for challenging caseloads. Zarida Riaz, a community practice teacher at the trust, told Nursing Standard: ‘We worry about the number of health visitors coming in who feel overwhelmed. There is a great deal of pressure to get them through their training at the moment.’ Since 2011, she said the trust has been focusing on doubling its health visitor numbers, from 120 to 240 by 2015. Other health visitors expressed concerns that the focus on boosting health visitor numbers is leading to redundancies in other areas. ‘We really value community nursery nurses, but since the health visitor implementation programme began it seems they are being made redundant to make way for more health visitors,’ said one health visitor from York. Department of Health and Public Health England director of nursing Viv Bennett said: ‘With single workforce growth targets, we have to be careful we do not get perverse outcomes.’