Health Visitors (Hansard, 12 January 2004)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner)
My Lords, when the new register opens later in 2004, the designated titles of the three parts of the new register will be the protected titles. It is anticipated that those will be nurses, midwives and community public health nurses. Public protection will be provided because anyone proposing to work as a health visitor must be registered on the community public health nurse part of the register.

§ Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, despite his assertion and despite successive ministerial assurances, under this Government there has been a continual erosion and devaluation of health visiting as a profession in its own right. Is it not a fact that, in future, people can be described as, or call themselves, "health visitors" without having the current competencies expected of a health visitor?

§ Lord Warner
My Lords, as I indicated in my reply, the public will be protected by health visitors meeting the competency requirements of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and those requirements will be placed on the third part of the register. The Government have done nothing other than encourage people to enter health visiting and we support the work of health visitors.

§ Earl Howe
My Lords, is it not right, however, that the third part of the register will include a number of disciplines, including that of health visitors? Is not the key point in this context that an employer should be in a position to know whether an individual who applies for a job as a health visitor has attained the required level of competence? Therefore, what steps are being taken to ensure that that can happen?

§ Lord Warner
My Lords, it is for the Nursing and Midwifery Council to identify the competence of people who are placed on the register. It is for someone who employs a person as, say, a health visitor, to establish that that person has the qualifications which he says he has and to ensure that he is competent to fill the advertised post. Nothing in these changes puts the public at risk in either of those dimensions. However, I can assure the noble Earl that I understand that, in future, the Nursing and Midwifery Council is proposing to identify separately existing health visitors and those who complete an approved health-visiting course leading to registration by an annotation on the register. I shall certainly ask my officials to work with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

§ Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, is the issue of competencies related to the fact that, under the current proposals, specialist community public health nurses will not require competencies in the following areas: children, child development, parents, families, social well-being, positive health and resiliency factors? On the register, those competencies will not he required. How can that possibly protect the public?

§ Lord Warner
My Lords, I cannot go into detail on that issue, but I believe that the noble Lord knows that the Nursing and Midwifery Council has undertaken a comprehensive consultation exercise both on the parts of the register and on the competencies to be obtained by those to be registered. As I understand it, that consultation is nearly complete and I expect to hear the outcome from the Nursing and Midwifery Council in the future. However, although we gave our comments to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, it is not for the Government to intervene in that process.

§ Lord Imbert
My Lords, is the Minister aware of the considerable disquiet among existing health visitors that, in future, when the new register comes into being, people who have received theoretical training but not practical nursing training will be appointed to do the job of health visitors as it is being done today?

§ Lord Warner
My Lords, it is already the case that a health visitor will have obtained a qualification either as a nurse or as a midwife before undertaking the extra health visitor training. As I said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, it is a matter for the Nursing and Midwifery Council to identify the competence of individual people to be placed on the register. That is not something for the Government to do; it is a professional registration matter.