Health written question – answered at on 2 November 2010.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average cost was of training a health visitor in the latest period for which figures are available.
This information is not collected centrally. As part of the programme to deliver the coalition Government commitment for the increase in the number of health visitors departmental officials are working with the national health service to ensure robust and up to date costings are used to plan the increase in training places.
The cost of a health visiting training course is about £6,500 per trainee (i.e. headcount) and the average salary cost for a full-time equivalent health visiting student is about £37,000 (i.e. the salary of a full-time experienced nurse now training to be a health visitor).
These figures are estimates only (based on information provided by strategic health authorities (SHAs) in 2005-06) and the actual costs will vary depending on local arrangements between SHAs and higher education institutions. Ultimately, it is the decision of SHAs how much they spend on training health visitors, and thus the Department, while using the most robust costing methodologies and information available for internal modelling work, cannot provide a definitive answer to the parliamentary question.
Yes1 person thinks so
No0 people think not
Would you like to ask a question like this yourself? Use our Freedom of Information site.