How we work

The NHS “Healthy Child Programme”

Health visitors lead the 0 to 5 element of the Healthy Child Programme. Our teams are led by health visitors with the support of community staff nurses, nursery nurses and administrators. We provide universal support and work in partnership with families or carers, community settings and partner agencies, including early years and education settings, GP’s, paediatricians, midwifery services and the Local Authority services. Because of our knowledge of, and partnership working with so many other agencies and groups, we are well placed to identify and signpost to support needed.

The Healthy Child Programme is a national programme offering every family an evidence-based intervention programme consisting of screening tests, immunisations, developmental reviews and information and guidance to support parenting and healthy choices. The programme is universal in reach (all families with children under the age of five in Oxfordshire are on our caseload) and personalised in response (we work in partnership with parents and carers to support health and wellbeing). As part of the Healthy Child Programme we deliver a minimum of 5 contacts to all families during the first 5 years of life. Antentally, just after your baby is born, at 6-8 weeks, 9-12 months of age and 24-30 months of age. In addition, all families are offered our programme of health promotion groups run by our nursery nurses, these could be when you have just had your first baby and when your child is 6 months, nearly 2 and 3-4 years of age.

The different levels of service that we provide you

The level at which we provide our care (our service model) is based on 4 levels of service: Community – all the groups we run; Universal – the minimum level of contacts we offer to assess health and development; Targeted – when you need some extra support for a short period of time, for example with breastfeeding in the early weeks, managing challenging behaviour, sleep, or developing early language and communication; Specialist – if your child has complex or chronic health conditions and you are being supported by other agencies, for example, community paediatricians, therapists, or social services.

Our focused areas of public health support “High Impact Areas”

We focus our work on “high impact areas”. These are areas of public health work that have been developed to improve outcomes for children, young people and families and where there is strong  evidence that support in these areas can have significant positive impact for children and families. The early years high impact areas are:

• Supporting transition to parenthood and the early weeks
• Supporting maternal and infant mental health
• Supporting breastfeeding (initiation and duration
• Supporting healthy weight and healthy nutrition
• Improving health literacy; reducing accidents and minor illnesses
• Supporting health, wellbeing and development. Ready to learn, narrowing the ‘word gap (school readiness)

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) is a centre of excellence, supporting health visiting and health visitors nationwide. They have useful information for parents and carers about the important role of health visiting in supporting parents in the early years of their child’s life.

Health visiting support: Institute of Health Visiting

Infographics to explain how we work