Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps is he taking to help retain Health Visitors in the NHS workforce; and what estimate he has made of the number of Health Visitors who are (a) eligible and (b) willing to return to practice.

It is the responsibility of local authority commissioners, working with their service provider, to determine health visitor numbers based upon local needs.

No recent estimate has been made. For NHS provision, the NHS Retention Programme seeks to understand why staff leave, resulting in targeted interventions to support staff to stay whilst keeping them well. All NHS Trusts have individually tailored retention programmes, including focusing on career development and training pathways to retain staff.