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?!

Hi op

Sorry my phone suffers from premature posting. You asked on page 1 does this happen in the US. I had a baby in the USA nearly 5 years ago. Since then nobody has so much as checked he is still alive - if I hadn't enrolled him in school I doubt they would ever have sent out a letter demanding he attend. No health visitors and I stopped his baby check ups at 6 weeks when I found out our insurance wasn't covering them and the bills were $400 each weigh in. So no... It doesn't happen in the USA. Not sure it is a good thing though... Kids get neglected here all the time.

Nothing to stop you turning up at a clinic at a time that suits you. Certainly, round here you could. They don't have to come to the house - in fact mine refused to step inside my house after she found out that we had a pet tarantula!
Seriously, YABU to want to refuse a check for your son that MIGHT prove to be beneficial to him and that allows the hv, to spend the majority of her time, concentrating on those children who do need intervention. By all means ask her why she's there, but be prepared for a reiteration of these posts.

Good post Miaow

Sorry but when you have absolutely no worries about your child, work FT and need to take a days holiday for a needless 15 minute appointment it is a pain! I work PT from home now so now would be able to fit in an appointment if needed, but I was FT with an hours commute each way when the children were young and I was annoyed at the pressure to take time off work so that someone could be reassured that my DC were fine.

So cancel it Taz.

Most surgeries are run on a shoestring though and no guarentee your message about not wanting the appt will get through first go, You might have to write it formally, ... for records to be amended.

...but cancel it and dont whinge that they are wasting your time if you cannot be bothered to do so.

Pisses me off.,., one of the major reasons I left health visiting was the number of "superior know it all" parents whose time I was clearly wasting.....as they were mine. With a huge number of child protection cases my time would have been better spent elsewhere,

I HAD to send appointments because that is what the PCT who employed me required. I didn't want or need to see anyone who clearly thought it was a waste of their time.

Interestingly in a few cases I picked up things that the smug "my child is fine" brigade had missed. In one case severe global delay which turned out to be a serious genetic issue.

But God I am glad I no longer have to deal with it all.

Am hiding this thread now as it is bringing back too much irritation.

Good luck OP, hope your message about cancelling the appointment (again) gets through this time. Your HV can do something more appropriate and productive instead of wadting your time and hers,

Well I can only base on personal experience but 19 years ago my HV was so incompetent I refused to use the service and made a formal complaint. If the service is to be offered in an overbearing way then in my opinion one or two improvements need still to be made including:

Making mutually convenient appointments - mine turned up on the step at 9am when I had a 12 day old baby with no attempt to make an appointment - no attempt at basic courtesy, no apology for coming at an inconvenient time.

Telling the truth about the service being optional and not demanding attendance at if I may say, rather dirty clinics where one had to wait adjacent to the sick visiting the doctor.

Being able to use the scales properly and not getting arsy when one points out they read -xx kg when the baby went on; and when it appears because of the incorrectly set scales that the baby has lost weight rather than just writing it in the book to notice there might be a problem.

Not seeing people with food stains down their cardi

If mother asks questions for example about immunisation to be able to answer them in a comprehensive and intelligent manner rather than reading out the leaflet

Not writing to the local head of immunology about your concerns because your baby has breathing problems - my baby didn't have breathing problems.

If one has problems breast feeding to be able to provide evidence based help and advice if the HV is intent upon telling a mother they must persevere and breast is better than bottle. Do not instruct me to do something when you have no expertise in that area whatsoever.

If there is paperwork to fill, then fill it accurately.

In short the service I received was discourteous and totally incompetent and I felt I was better able to pick up problems with my dc that than the HV. Posters talk about what they pick up; I am more concerned about what I am sure they miss or disregard.

If a mother thinks there is a problem with her baby she needs to visit the GP and ask for a referral to a specialist. The HV cannot do that.

IMO it's a service with extremely high levels of incompetence and disinterest and the money would be better spent having more time at GP level for new mothers who could identify potential issues and refer to other agencies, with sound reasons shared with the parents, so that specialist support can be professionally identified and targetted.

After my son was born and beyond 8 weeks I formally refused to have anything to do with the service ever again, made a form complaint which was upheld and was within my rights to refuse their services which are by the way not mandatory but that is not clearly explained to women. I asked the question at least three times and did not get a straight answer until I met with the Director of the local health trust.

I think that routine checks at 2 years are probably a better and more time/cost effective way of at least trying to prevent another Baby P. Imagine the time it would take to research all local children including those who haven't been flagged just to double and triple check that they shouldn't have been red flagged.

Given the scrutiny that these services are under, rescheduling the appointment for the afternoon and giving up 20 mins so that your HV can tell you your ds is fine...isn't really much to ask is it?
You say you feel your privacy is being violated and that it's inconvenient. So change the time and maybe realise that by giving up your privacy for 20 mins, the HV is able to maintain a certain level of service across the board.

Ask away OP , hopefully the HV will be able to allay your fears with regards to the gulity until proven innocent point .
Are all the HV's in your area very anti breastfeeding then ?
I had to cancel two appointments i was sent for DS's two year check , one because i was working that day and another because he was sick . In the end i took him in to the sure start centre and saw a HV there for it . In and out in 20 minutes , and i managed to get a bargain from the ' for sale' notice board , so a good day all round !
HV's are people too , there are always going to be good and bad in any profession . I imagine it is hard for you , when bad past experiences have left you with a negative bias towards them.

Also I'm not sure it's helpful to compare HV experiences across decades a lot has changed in recent years. My HV was quite nice, didn't give me much advice but I didn't need/ask for it. She was however very kind to me and very complimentary of my skills and my dd progress which boasted my confidence as a mother.
That said I wouldn't think for a moment that all HV are like this or that the routine checks etc are the same as they were back in 2002 when dd was born.

OMG what a massive over reaction , the hv is only doing their job. You seem very over sensitive and suspicious . I would have no problems with them coming to do a routine check which is offered to every child in the country

i would cancel it. it's big brother. the whole 'well if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about'. bullshit. you feel it's an invasion. it's optional. cancel. tell her you have no concerns and as it's optional you are cancelling.

force them to admit that it's mandatory otherwise she's not coming in.

btw my kids haven't been offered the 2 year check. so it is not offered to everyone in the country.

My friend said no and no red flags went up!

I work for the NHS and I think you will find it is , perhaps your letter got lost in the post

Perhaps when you phoned you sounded as angry as you are coming across here and that made the HV pay attention and think maybe she should go and see you.
Personally I was glad of the visit- 10 minutes chatting to someone from the NHS who was looking like they gave a shit at my DS's development.

If you don't want her there phone her and tell her that you have other kids and it's a waste of her time but thanks anyway. The crosser you are the more they will think there is something wrong because it's not most people's bog standard reaction to a 2 year check.

Is the 2 year check the one where children are given a book bag full of drawing book, pencils and a story book?
DS had his 2 year check up at the clinic. He still uses that book bag 5 years later as it's his favourite colour.

The only other people I know who refused all HV visits were doctors who basically thought all HV and nurses were a waste of space. The fact was the father of the boy was an abusive alcoholic and the mother was near a nervous breakdown - the child's home life at that time was totally dysfunctional. No wonder they didn't want the HV anywhere near them.

It's a milestone visit, and will be the last one you will have if no concerns.
You really just have to suck it up, i had these visits with all four of my dc and expect the same with dc5.
I suppose they are there just to check your dc is doing all the things they should be.

I have had good health visitors, that are friendly and helpful & of course i have had bad experiences with them too, re pfb, snooty hv complaining about my dog, xmas tree and various other things that weren't to her taste. But i sucked it up and was relieved when the bitch got the f* out of my house and never came back, when pfb finally turned 3

Wombles - sorry, only just back online. When I called up to tell them I didn't want the appointment, they wanted to re-arrange it. I told them I wasn't interested in making another. They told me that this would be noted on their files, which would be transferred to the doctors. I said fine.

I have seen the doctors a few times - who hasn't with small children? They've never raised it.

It truly is down to you, and is a choice. If you truly, for whatever reason, don't want to do it then don't.

I won't, like others on here, judge your choices or your reasons for it, for they are yours. You are your childs parent and are the person who is able to make these decisions, so if you are confident that it is unneccessary, then don't do it.

I can't see why people object to HV. If you get a nice one you're lucky. If you get a busybody type then it's more difficult. But I think refusing visits will just raise red flags to them. Right or wrong that's how it is. But I agree they shouldn't keep calling it optional when refusing visits has 'implications'.

The main issue is really that the whole concept of the HV position seems to be flawed. There is a deep-seated problem in that a signficant percentage of the people occupying these posts are, objectively, completely crap and in some cases dangerously misinformed. So - either the route/routes HCPs are taking into HV work and/or the content and intensity of the training provided are not suitable for what the NHS wants and percives the post to entail.

I don't know how that needs to be fixed, but it does. It seems to be some sort of fluffy nothing position - I have NEVER seen a HV whose opinion I have thought worth having after 2-3 minutes chat, and I've seen a few, as we've moved about a fair bit since having children. It's usually some utterly misinformed comment or piece of 'advice' about breastfeeding that makes me tick them off the list mentally. And after that, the concept of contacting them if there was a problem with my child seems ludicrous, and I'd automatically contact the 'real' professional - GP, pharmacist, whatever.

It shouldn't be like that.

I'd just ring them back and say there's obviously been a mistake because another appointment has been made and you don't need one, but thanks for thinking of you.

I've not taken dd for the group appointment for her 1 year check. I did take ds for his 8 month appointment at clinic (as it was then). I have no concerns and I really cannot see the benefit of a group appointment for 15 minutes and nor do I want to discuss my dd's development in front of some other parents nor be witness to their discussions.

Neither of mine had/will have the two year check which happens when they are 2.5 here because it is really too late to pick up on most development issues. DS was under a paediatrician until he was 2 for a suspected allergy and from 2-3 was under the consultant at the ENT clinic and audiology for hearing problems and was seeing a private SLT. I could not see the point of taking him along to see a HV who would tell me all the things that were wrong with him when I already knew. So I didn't.

Not that it matters really, if you don't want to see the HV you don't have to and you don't even need to say why.