to ask the health visitor why she's here

[womblesofwestminster]

Recently I got a letter from the health visiting team. It was informing me that an appointment had been made for a home visit for my DS because he has just turned 2.

DS is not a PFB. There's been no concerns with his development or health. No missed vaccinations or GP appointments. Nothing. So why the need for the visit?

I phoned and cancelled the appointment saying I had no concerns with my DS. They phoned back a few days later to say another appointment had been arranged. WTF? I thought this service was optional not mandatory?!

Though, all that said, I do remember the nursery nurse giving bad advice at the weaning talk so it's not that I think the service is flawless but I don't see it as some kind of sinister Big Brother type outfit!

this differs from area to area as we weren't invited to even a year check with DD1 and we had one visit from the HV for DD2 and not a dickie bird from them since (she's 13 months now)..... very odd.

Struck me as a job creation scheme for nurses who wanted a qualification to get them out of nursing. All those visits round here in homes worth 7 figures, chippy little comments, trying to grind vulnerable women into a bad place because that's how they got their kicks. How hard is it really to Sspend a third of one's time driving from appointment to appointment with the radio on, blaming the traffic for turning up late?? [Hmm]

Parents that are abusing children want to keep them 'under the radar', appointments are missed, it's a flag. God forbid that your child suffered what was thought to be an unexplained injury - that 'flag' would act against you, and for what reason, you have nothing to hide.

Near, you need a reality check love if you really think that is all your HV does,

I used to spend half my life attending child protection meetings and visiting the families of the children involved,

Fuck all to do with "getting out of nursing".

God there are some ignorant people on this thread. Just as ignorant as some HVs no doubt but I do get irritated by people assuming one bad one is representative of the entire profession,

And I don't know where you all live but I worked in an area with one of the highest number of child protection cases in the UK. I was far too busy to waste my time visiting smug women in expensive houses who clearly know everything about child development and who look down their noses at my job.

Thank God I no longer have to do it.

What exactly are you trying to say overcooked? Is it that parents who chose not to engage with a non mandatory service due to its inadequacy will be suspected of abusing their children? That's precisely why I made a formal complaint due to the service's overbearing nature. And I achieved some improvements: in my area standards were set about HVs making proper appointments, nt before 10am for new baby checks, a lactation consultant was hired - funded jointly between the PCT and hospital trust (HVs and MWs), and there was a commitment to improving communication. Not least more clinics outside surgery hous were organised. In my case a formal complaint was worth it but that doesn't detract from the upset and incompetence encountered.

Admittedly it was easier to complain as a professional with a lawyer for a husband against a background of a very wanted and planned child and a very stable home.

I really am hising this thread now.

Some of you have had bad experiences its clear.

Yes I agree there are some shit HVs out there. ...just as there are nurses, midwives (btw....you DO know many HVs are also midwives), doctors, teachers, secretarys etc etc.

The shit HVs drove ME nuts too....but I am too intelligent to tar an entire profession based on one or two bad ones.

Complain....get them out ....far more productive than bitching about it all on an internet forum.

Well done Near, I am glad at least that you got some improvements for the local community as a result of your complaint. That is positive.

Well then jakebullet duckie - as you clearly want to plumb those sorts of depths, that's precisely what you shoukd have been doing. Not, as my little HV got her kicks from, trying to degrade women who were clearly doing their best in a loving environment. I didn"t want her in my home without an appointment at 9am in the morning when my baby was less than two weeks old spouting ill informed crap - bt it was clearly a nicer place for her to be than a dirty flat, 22 floors up, where she was needed.

At about that time the chairman of the HV association said in the broadsheet press that the role of the Hv was to teach ignorant mothers the three Cs - "cooking, cleaning and communication". Nothing much more rude than that imo and anyone who lumps me into that can take a running little jump and that alone convinced me that I would never deal with your smug little profession again.

As you were duckie!

I got told at DS's 8 month review, by the adequate one, that as I am partly deaf, that I must make sure that DS's hearing gets checked out. He had already had a hearing test at 15 DAYS old, which was fine. And she had been told this.

Ds1 had a hearing check at a few weeks old and passed.

At 7 months he was diagnosed as being partially deaf in one ear.

Having the newborn hearing test is just an indication which MAY pick up a problem. Suggesting another at a later date if there is history of hearing loss in the family is entirely sensible.

Is this really the type of thing which people think makes a bad hv?

Blimey, near, I thought your performance on a previous thread about teachers was just you having a bad day.

But you genuinely are a full-on pompous arse, aren't you?

I can't say that my experiences with HVs have been useful. I'd just smile and nod at the advice about how to sterilise and put baby to sleep etc etc.

BUT I'm also sensible enough to realise that by nature of their role, HVs have to target their advice to the lowest common denominator...and they have no way of knowing if that's you or not.

Nice sentiment Suburban. Simply speaking as I have found it. As I said on the other thread perhaps you would care to explain why the public should blithely accept substandard services. I can see no reason for substandard services to be delivered and even less reason to see why they should be acceptable. But hey let's just treat eVeryone like crap and watch them suck it up eh? Perhaps you would care to explain this time why people should just suck it up.

You're very welcome, near.

Simply speaking as I found it

Not that I have any interest in replying to someone who deals only in generalisations, but I'm sure even you would admit that substandard service is not the exclusive preserve of the public sector.

You know what the purpose of the two year checks are. Please don't bully this HV coming to your house trying to do her job by harassing her with stupid questions about what she wants and accusations that she is treating you as guilty until proven innocent.

Just cancel if you don't want her there.

Then get over yourself.

No it isn't exclusive to the public sector but it is more widespread and when it is identified there are often more excuses than there are remedies.

My personal experiences are not generalisations and if you were to read this thread I think you would find rather a large number of mothers on it who have found the HV service, a service that is expensive and has variable impact at best, very wanting.

I think the HV service cost several billion to provide and yet large numbers of women find it inadequate for their needs. Every woman has midwife or GP care in he UK. Most women see MWs or GPs about six times during pregnancy and those carers should be forming opinions about women they get to know and should be raising red flags if required on the basis of that experience which should be far greater than an hv dealing with a flustered new mummy at a new birth visit. Those professional carers shoukd be ensuring that more orofessional and targetted care is delivered to those women who really need it rather than the current situation where all women are offered care of a variable and often inadequate standard.

NearTheWindmill

it isn't only women in dirty 22nd floor flats who get PND you know, and that whole post makes you sound really, really unpleasant.

Hmm. IMHO people who say they 'speak as they find' usually are really really unpleasant.

Lots of talk about women's needs here. Women's needs are important but
The HV service is supposed to be child centred.
I think lots of ppl very easily take issue when some is looking at their child's needs. It makes ppl feel defensive.
I have been lucky with my HVs.
I have had mixed experiences with GPs. I would have been foolish to think that after a bad gp experience all gps were rubbish.
So I can see that it would be annoying to have had a problem with a HV.
My dh reckons that the only ppl who hate HVs are those with something to hide. But he can be a bit rude. I don't take him to mother and baby groups

Trouble is Near, that the HV has NO say in what she does. She/He is employed by a PCT who tells her what she has to do. So if they told me "all 2 year olds are to be offered a 2 year development check" then that is what I had to do. In fact my last PCT didn't bother with this thankfully due to the very high child protection caseload in the area. I worked on a sink estate (the kind where drug dealing was almost a cottage industry) and housing was very poor....so the 2 year checks were targeted to the famiies of concern and only offered to others if they expressed a concern about their child's development. Perhaps this is a better way of targeting these checks.....but the Coalition govt want ALL 2 year old children to be offered a development check.

So yes I would far rather have spent my time in that filthy 22nd floor flat with the isolated woman who needs my support than in the million pound home of a woman who does not. I might add though that I have found as much PND and isolation in the million pound homes as I did in the poorer homes in the past. The richer woman can be very isolated too....just in a bit more comfort. She does generally have more resources to deal with her isolation though. Child abuse also happens in the richer homes but is generally better hidden.

You mention that your HV was filthy and there is no excuse for that. Nor is there any excuse for crappy outdated advice and trust me, I have banged my head against the proverbial brick wall in the past when I have read here some of the shitty advice women have been given. There is no justification for crap advice.

Ultimately the real issue is that women are not told honestly that the service statutorily has to offer a visit to all women/babies but women do not have to accept that service if they don't want it. This is further compounded by the fact that women have no choice over who their HV is and they have no opportunity to meet them before the birth. This is completely wrong in my opinion - I wouldn't go to any old GP or dentist and I thought carefully about which of the three hospitals I could have had my children at before booking, listening to friends' experiences and actually going on the new mother tours. Likewise one listens to friends' experiences about GPs and puts one's head round the practice door before registering to see how it carries on.

I wouldn't just engage any old accountant or solicitor or even estate agent and I feel quite strongly that women should have more choice in relation to their HV and should be able to check out their local reputations before engaging with them. I didn't want a complete stranger coming to my home at the most vulnerable time of my life without checking out their credentials first.

It's the dictatorial and variable nature of the service that is wrong and the fact that HVs and other health professionals do not provide clear guidance in relation to expectations of what the service should provide.

near, please provide links to evidence for the following pronouncements in your latest post:

"No, [substandard service] isn't exclusive to the public sector but it is more widespread and when it is identified there are often more excuses than there are remedies."

"I think the HV service cost several billion to provide all women and yet large numbers of women find it inadequate for their needs."

I know PND exists in wealthy homes Jakebullet. I had it. But I had it because of poor continuity of care and what tipped me over the edge having had by the time my son was six weeks old, three bouts of mastitis (infective mastitis it was called then) and a breast abscess, was a Health Visitor who was obsessed with breast feeding and when I asked for help just said "well breastfeeding mothers put their baby first, bottle feeding mothers put themselves first - there are benefits to breast feeding you know".

I cannot explain how much pain I was in during those six weeks (and suspect now that I probably had thrush of the inner breast tissues too) and that comment forced me to breast feed for another two weeks against the advice of a breast surgeon with a tube inserted into my breast to drain pus and hooked over my shoulder to drain into a plastic bag. All I needed was a bit of empathy and help - and I think HVs need to be aware of the power they are able to wield over mothers when they are at their most vulnerable whatever their circumstances. Trouble was, I probably didn't look vulnerable.

Having experienced a disgraceful service on every level: social, clinical, professional and competence I exercised my right to formally refuse the service and never again saw a health visitor because unfortunately I saw nothing positive about anything they asserted to provide - at my one clinic visit the HV couldn't even accurately weight the baby and was totally disinterested in him and me and I had to sit in a noisy, ghastly room for 40 minutes for that.

I'll work on the first suburban. For the second all you have to do is multiply the salaries of about 20,000 health visitors and add on about 25% for management costs and premises.

I'm aware that was personal Jakebullet but I have to say looking back to that period I still get upset about the first six weeks with my baby and the one person who should have been there and facilitated further support was the health visitor - no?