Nursery World - Proposal to locate health visitors in children's centres sparks row

A debate on whether health visitors should be based in children's centres or at doctors' surgeries has broken out, after GPs claimed that there is a communication breakdown with those based at childcare settings.

The Government has promised to fund more than 4,000 extra health visitors in England, who would be concentrated in children's centres. However, the Royal College of General Practitioners told the BBC that its members are seeing a worrying pattern developing, where vital information is not being passed back to them.

Professor Steve Fields of the RCGP said, 'Mums-to-be are not getting the service they could have had five or ten years ago. It is an unintended consequence of children's centres being established and health visitors moving out of GPs' surgeries and GPs not being as actively involved in their care during their pregnancy.'

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