Health Visitors This Way Please !

[IfOnlyOurEyesSawSouls]

Hello

If you are a health visitor do you enjoy your job ? What do you enjoy about it ?
Do you have any regrets about joining?

Im a band 6 RMN and have been tempted for a long while to do the top up training. The next round of training starts in September so im thinking of applying.

I would really like some feedback from those people who do the job though.

Thankyou very much

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I've got one more year of uni and definitely applying.

I'm doing a few OU free courses that I think might help broaden my knowledge in this are as well.

Question though OP, are you angel to apply now?
I looked last week and the applications for our September intake ended in March.

Morning @AndOutComeTheBoobs , yes the applications for September end this week .

I'm not a health visitor but my mum is. She finds it challenging but rewarding. Was a nurse for years before retraining and is very glad she decided to go into health visiting good luck with whatever you decide to do

Are you aware that health visitors basically only do the first visits and then after that pretty much only have the high needs families with safeguarding issues, etc on their case loads?

All the other mandated visits get done by family support workers or band 5 health families nurses. Obviously varies slightly from place to place, but the band 6 HV’s are usually involved in a lot of child in need/child protection stuff and not much else.

Still loads of time to apply, all the student SCPHN adverts have popped up on NHS jobs this week with closing dates in late June.

Also, barely any trusts with student SCPHN vacancies will guarantee you a job as a NQ HV at the end of it either. But so long as you go in with your eyes open, and still want to do it that’s great!

@andoutcometheboobs

These are paid training vacancies put out by the local health authority, you apply directly to them, and if they accept you for the vacancy your place at uni is guaranteed. It doesn’t match up with uni application cycles.

@QueenofPain that's interesting, iv got an interview for one of the band 5 practitioners jobs.

It will be a big drop in pay but im looking for something i will enjoy and is less stressful.

Any thoughts?

I’m in pretty much the same boat really, I applied once before and was working as band 6 in the 111 service at the time and got offered a place on the health visitor course, but could only make my finances work if they’d placed me with a HV team close to home, and instead I got placed with a HV team that is the furthest possible distance still within the boundary, I ended up having to decline the place because there was no way I could make it work financially without having an horrendous year. I would have had three days a week of forty mile round trips to uni, and another two days a week of thirty mile round trips to placement, and they don’t reimburse any fuel for travel. That was 2016.

In that time, I’ve changed jobs again I’m now earning equivalent of higher end of band 7, not 100% enamoured with my job, and am considering going for it again. I’d now be looking at an £18k pay cut, but I’m still really interested in becoming a HV, so I currently weighing up whether I can use the next few months till September to pay down all my debts, pay in full for things I normally do on DD like direct debit, etc, so that my monthly outgoings are dramatically reduced by September.

You usually have to do a presentation in the interview as well, in my last interview we had to choose one of the domains in the 0-5 years healthy child programme, and do a presentation about that.

I don’t know about less stress, just stress presented differently, hah. I think that’s the NHS all over though.

Queen I know.

I was looking on NHS jobs and the application for them ended in March.

Its hard isn't it. Iv just dropped down from mid band 7 to top 6 , iv got to the stage those that i need to be happy and am willing to take further pay cut .

Have had a really horrible 2 years at work and just need to make a change.

Health visitor here !
In the 3 counties I know - only health visitors do the mandated key contacts- this is commissioned . Band 5’s and nursery nurses do not do them . They run drop in clinics , do short term interventions and things like weight follow ups - introducing solids groups , lots of joint working . There is a lot of safeguarding , and I feel like a detective frequently , as sadly information sharing can still be poor .

When I did a HV placement within the first 30 minutes the HV told me she felt like a detective for the most part!

It was in a very deprived area with a lot of safe guarding. I loved it though.

@andoutcometheboobs

Different areas must be getting their funding through at different times, or going out to advert later in the year.

There’s currently two adverts for Nottingham, both county and city, and derby city on NHS jobs. Haven’t looked further afield.

When I last applied it was end of July application deadlines, and then was interviewed with 6 weeks to go until uni start date, offered place with 4 weeks notice to end my employment and start uni, because they’d not had the right applicants the first time the adverts went out.

It’s very variable and all areas are different.

My current role has so much safeguarding. So very much 

@Buffymum do you think the band 5s feel fulfilled?

Im trying to move out of mental health, iv done it for 20 years so have lots of transferable skills, but would i get the opportunity to use them as a band 5 do you think?

I think the band 5’s locally have had a pretty rough deal tbh . Their job descriptions have changed and they also were pulled into immunisations for the SChool nurses , which many did not enjoy . Some areas I believe are reducing band 5 numbers and nursery nurses .
Mental health nurses have great transferable skills !

Not that I want to be negative at all, and it may well be perfect for you, but two RMN’s that I know who did the course are now both working back in Mental Health. But for one of them it was because she wanted the earning potential of doing nights and weekends in the secure unit she’d worked in previously.

Hmmmm.
Thanks so much @Buffymum for your help, thats given me some food for thought.

Oooh no @QueenofPain ... I haven't worked unsocials for years and dont want to

Sounds great then! What’s stopping you from applying?

I wasn't sure if I would prefer the band 5 healthy families post so thought I would ask HVs on here about their experiences