ASS066-1: Health Visitor Profession Analysis - Policy and Development

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the health visitor profession, tracing its emergence and development within the human services sector. It explores key milestones, including changes in policy, professional status, and influence. The essay focuses on the roles and responsibilities of health visitors, such as offering home-based care to children, mothers, and individuals with chronic illnesses, while also examining the various policies and legislations that impact their work. The analysis highlights the positive and negative aspects of the profession, including challenges like stressful working conditions and the impact of resource constraints. The essay emphasizes the health visitor's vital role in enhancing the health and mental well-being of communities, with a particular focus on the evolution of health visiting programs and their impact on service users. It references various studies and guidelines, such as those from NICE and the NHS, to support its findings. The work of health visitors is crucial in delivering appropriate child health programs, and this essay examines the profession's evolution, challenges, and contributions to public health.

Running head: UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN SERVICES
UNDERSTANDING HUMAN SERVICES
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN SERVICES
Human service is stated to be an interdisciplinary arena that has the aim of meeting
the needs of humans by application of knowledge base and focusing on remediation and
prevention of the issues. It is conducted by focusing on enhancing the quality of life with
respect to the service population. It involves the study of various technologies such as
practice methods, model, theories and system, organisations and program design to progress
the delivery of service by improved coordination, accountability and accessibility (Neukrug
2016). The understanding of human service is a vast scenario that involves several
professionals involved in this sector. The aim of the essay is to gain an understanding of the
emergence and development of a particular group, changes and achievements in terms of the
policy, profession and influence. In addition, the relationship between a professional group
and the service-user group will be analysed. The professional group chosen for conducting
this essay is the health visitor, who is a trained nurse visiting homes of patients in order to
advise or assist them who are suffering from chronic illness or parents having infants.
Health visitors are a professional group of individuals that are involved in offering
human services to the people in the community, especially those who critically require the
services. As per the opinion of Chambers, Williams and Halford (2018), health visitors are
considered to be nurses or midwives that have acquired an additional and specialised public
health qualification who work in association with the families that have children under the
age of five as well as people having a terminal illness with the intention of enhance the health
and prevention of illness. The nurses or midwives often are involved in in-home visits
because of the fact that the concerned individual or patient is unable to go to a healthcare
setting (Targetjobs.co.uk 2020). In addition to this, it can be seen that the group of
professionals is also involved in working with deprived groups such as homeless people or
other vulnerable groups. The key duties and responsibilities of the health visitors include
offering advice as well as promotion of health education program for promoting health and

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UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN SERVICES
wellbeing, conducting developmental assessments of infants and children below the age of
five years and supporting people that are suffering complex illness in term of physical such as
cancer or mental such as postnatal depression. Furthermore, they are responsible for
establishing and addressing the critical need of health in the community, referral, supporting
in acquiring parent skills, resolving children issues and working in collaboration with other
professionals such as General Practitioners (GPs), social worker and school nurse for
promoting the health of the society (Jennings 2018).
Health visitors are critical social care workers that are responsible for multiple aspects
of enhancing the health and mental wellbeing of the community. Various evidence is
available that supports and prioritise the work of these professional groups in social care.
Lowenhoff et al. (2017) opined that as per the guidelines of the National Institute for Health
and Care Excellence (NICE) in term of postnatal and antenatal mental health stated that the
intervention was given by health visitors who were considered as ‘listening visitor’ that was
not included in the recommendations. Maternal mental health is one of the critical Health’s
six high impact areas in the English Department and is one of the components in health
visiting practice. As per the guidelines and recommendations of NICE, these professionals
play a vital role in the identification, treating, prevention and improving the health outcome
of mothers, babies and their partners. In another study conducted by Henderson et al. (2019),
the training of Health Visitors (HV) is stated to be cost-effective in evaluating the postnatal
depression (PND) as well as offering psychological approaches specifically women who are
at risk of developing symptoms of depression. A study upon the population from the Trent
region was investigated in terms of assessing the effectiveness of PoNDER HV training,
which was found to be cheaper and effective in preventing the symptoms within a period of
six months. Brook, Thurtle and Murray (2019) opined that health visitors are trained and
qualified where local and strategic changes are required in order to retain them. Since the

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work of these professionals is hectic and strenuous, thus, focus on changing certain aspects
such as enhancement of community placements in term of pre-registered nursing and
midwifery support will help in improving the environment and work preferences.
There is no specific legislation or policy that direct assessing the provision of health
visiting; however, the fundamental components are included in various related policies and
legislations to undertake the specification. The National Health Service (NHS) had published
a national core health visiting service specification (England.nhs.uk 2020). This involves
guidelines that strengthen the focus on the role of the workers as a leader and improving the
health of children and their families. The aspect of supporting and sustaining a safe
environment for transferring to the local authority in commission public health service for
children between the age group of 0 to 5 years is stated to be a priority (Bennett 2017). The
health visitors have become critical while commissioning the Healthy Child Programmes that
have been transferred from the NHS to local authorities. This involves mandating five visits
to the child that help in tackling several health issues such as childhood obesity, smoking
reduction during pregnancy and improvement of mental health of pregnant mothers (Green,
Gray and Ashton 2019). There are four levels of services related to community where a broad
knowledge of the local resources are offered, universal that involve five key visits to the
home, universal plus that offer families to access advise and support on various issues and
universal partnership plus that offer support to families of the children having complex health
and social needs. This is responsible for linking them with local services.
As per the study of Cowley et al. (2018), the role of health visitors is changing in
many countries and Scotland; there were substantial changes by the introduction of an
enhanced health visiting programme that had structured it and increased the number of visits.
The provision of a quality healthcare programme is stated to enhance the access of the
healthcare sector in early life in order to reduce health inequalities. The changes are

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UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN SERVICES
conducted in conjunction with the National Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC)
agenda. This was used for improving the results as well as aiding the welfare of children as
well as other people. Another change was the implementation of recommendations per the
policy document of the Public Health Nursing Service-Future Focus: CEL 13 that improved
the role, duties and responsibilities of health visitors as defined by the Nursing for Health
review that refocused on improving the health-visiting program (Doi, Jepson and Hardie
2017). These were evidence-based, priorities, and policy direction. Thus, it promoted the
positive mental and physical health, which support the parent and help in the development of
children; thus, it allows in maintaining a balance in professional role identity and based on
the various theoretical and holistic framework used for help the target population.
The success of the role of health visitors is to have a positive impact on improving the
health and wellbeing of not only the children but include parents and others associated with
the child. Malon et al. (2016) opined that the work of health visitors maximise the capacity of
the health visiting resources. Therefore, it allows in effective and specific usage of the
available resources, thus, saving them time and cost related to it. Moreover, the evidence state
that careful consideration of the service allows in reshaping the services directed to the child
and family members, thus, incorporating the core elements. The health visitors are
responsible for making a difference by delivering appropriate child health program during the
early years. The operations of the health visitors are stressful in nature and cause them to quit
in many cases. Therefore, the lack of trained and professional workers strain the service,
causing pressure in the existing workforce. Bias and discrimination are found in a few cases
that involve neglecting the issue resulting in poor health outcomes of the target population
(Greaves, Watson and Keen 2016). Due to the lack of specific guidelines, the health visitors
are unable to offer help in case of a sudden outbreak of emergency as a result of which it led
to an increase in mortality rate.

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UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN SERVICES
From the essay, it can be inferred that health visitors are a vital component of the
healthcare sector that offers human services to people that are in need of home-based
services. They have a critical responsibility of offering home-based care to children below the
age of 5 years, mothers, family members, and even those who are suffering from critical
illness. The working environment in such cases differ from a typical healthcare setting;
however, they offer high-quality service to improve not only the health of the patient but also
of the community as a whole. The assessment of the job responsibilities, specific and relevant
legislation and policy, changes related to the profession over time and the positive, as well as
negative aspects related to the chosen profession, was reviewed.

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References
Bennett, V. 2017. Continuing the mandation of the universal five health visiting checks -
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universal-five-health-visiting-checks/ [Accessed 14 Mar. 2020].
Brook, J., Thurtle, V. and Murray, J., 2019. Building the English health visitor workforce as a
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progression and retention for newly qualified health visitors. Primary health care research &
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Chambers, C., Williams, M. and Halford, B., 2018. The role of the health visitor in relation to
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UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN SERVICES
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