Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve training for (a) health visitors and (b) community healthcare professionals on the needs of (i) preterm babies and (ii) their families.

The Government is committed to raising the healthiest generation of children ever. To achieve this, we must ensure families have the support they need to give their babies and children the best start and the building blocks for a healthy life. This will take time, but we are committed to building a health service fit for the future with the workforce it needs. The training provided to health visitors specifically, and community healthcare professionals more generally, is outlined below.

To practice as a health visitor, a registered nurse must complete the Specialist Community Public Health Nurse qualification. Health visitor training includes a requirement for staff to be able to assess the impact of complexity and comorbidity and their impact on children and loved ones, which includes prematurity.

The Government has laid out in the Plan for Change its commitment to strengthen health visiting services. A strengthened health visiting service will enable the needs of premature babies and their families to be better supported.

NHS England has worked in partnership with key stakeholders, for instance the Tiny Lives Trust charity and clinical psychologists, to develop online learning specifically for community healthcare professionals, including health visitors. This training covers subject matters such as professionals’ work with families as they transition from neonatal units to home, as well as psychologically informed neonatal care.