Health: Visitor Service

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we hope to recruit nurses and midwives for upskilling from a variety of sources. Some will come out of retirement, we hope, while others will, we trust, come from the acute sector. As my noble friend knows, the trend for a long time has been to try to get care increasingly out of acute settings and into the community. I think that we will see that transfer of skills taking place from a variety of sources.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, given the important and welcome drive to recruit health visitors, will the Minister consider hosting a meeting for health visitors and Members of the House of Lords so that we can understand this issue better and support this work as far as we can?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I draw the noble Earl’s attention to the document which my department published last month, Health Visitor Implementation Plan 2011-15: A Call to Action, which sets out how we are going to work with partners to deliver our ambition, including, very significantly, the Sure Start children’s centres which play an important role in our agenda. However, I will take the noble Earl’s idea back with me and be in touch with him about it.