Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 23 June 2009.
What steps his Department is taking to assist health professionals to reduce levels of child abuse in the long term.
We are working closely with NHS and professional leaders to ensure high-quality training and support for the children's health work force on safeguarding children. The Government's action plan in response to Lord Laming's recent report set out a range of measures, including action to strengthen training and support for professionals, action on health visiting, and action to support GPs.
My hon. Friend will know that the abusers of 20 years hence are being born today. Does she accept that if we can intervene now with those babies, children and young people to create better, more adept and more socially and emotionally capable people, we will be doing a tremendous amount to reduce abuse in the long term, as well as doing the necessary things that we have to do in cases such as that of baby P and others? Will she particularly commend the work of the family nurse partnership, sponsored by her Department, which is doing so much with those young families?
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he has always done in his constituency and the House on the care of children. We are expecting to roll out the family nurse partnership in even more areas. May I also congratulate children's trusts such as the Nottingham city partnership, which play a central role in improving arrangements to safeguard children?
One of the key recommendations agreed to by the Government in Lord Laming's recent report was the reintroduction of a universal system of health visiting, seeing all children and developing strong relationships with families. How many new health visitors will the Minister be putting in place to make up the shortfall, which is currently estimated to be about 2,000 throughout the country?
The hon. Lady is absolutely correct about the importance of health visiting: it is crucial for children and family development. We will expand the family nurse partnership programme in England to 70 test sites by 2011, and we also recently launched the action on health visiting programme, in which the Department is working very closely with the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association and other bodies in order to recruit staff, particularly to improve retention, and most importantly to try to bring us back up to the previous number of health visitors. We have lost some for a variety of reasons—in order to raise families, perhaps—and many might not be aware of the new flexible employment practice within the NHS.