Public Health Nursing Services for Children, Young People aged 0-19 and their Families

An additional £170,000 per annum is to be made available to the Trust. The additional funding will enable the Trust to recruit specialist SEND focused health visitors, to provide a focused intervention for children that have been identified at the 2.5-year check as requiring support with development or SEND needs.

The roles will add an additional layer of early intervention to ensure those with higher levels of need can get the right support early and potentially avoid unnecessary delays on wider service waiting lists. This layer of early intervention is required within our current system to improve outcomes for children with higher levels of developmental need.

Additional capacity will also allow the infant feeding team to expand, enabling the commencement of a new pilot delivering group-based support for parents-to-be to prepare for breastfeeding. Currently capacity only allows the service to deliver support postnatally, however evidence shows if we can more effectively prepare families with information and guidance to breastfeed before they give birth, and build support networks, they are more successful in their breastfeeding journey.

Worcestershire is currently performing worse than the national picture regarding breastfeeding rates at 6 weeks. This is something as a county we need to improve to improve health outcomes for babies and mothers.