Healthcare: 'Dumbing down' fear for health visiting under training plans
Health visiting as a specialist career could be lost under Government plans for nursing, says the health visitors' union.
The Unite/Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association said last week that proposals set out in a Department of Health consultation on a new career framework for nursing risks 'dumbing down' the role of health visitors by axing specialist training.
In its response, Unite/CPHVA said, 'The proposed framework does not provide a career pathway for the nurse who wishes to progess his/her career in terms of specialist practice, whether this be a health visitor, district nurse, school nurse or community children's nurse.'
The union's professional officer Rita Newland said, 'The Department of Health makes a clear statement in the framework it's offering that there would no longer be specialist practice education programmes.'
Currently, nurses or midwives train to qualify as health visitors over a year at degree level, sponsored by their Primary Care Trust, which receives funding from the strategic health authority.
Ms Newland said there was a danger that 'training on an ad hoc basis will dilute the quality' of the service. 'What this will mean in everyday terms is that families and communities may not in future receive the level of specialist community nursing care they currently enjoy.'
The Government is piloting Family Nurse Partnerships, which Ms Newland said could replace health visitors.
The Government consultation Towards a Framework for Post- Registration Nursing Careers, which ended last week, is part of the wider Modernising Nursing Careers programme.
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