to expect the health service to ask to see a child between the ages of 2.5 and 5?

[wolveschick]

This week I got a letter from my health service to say that they will no longer send a 3 year check appointment, to bring a child to the clinic for assessment but instead I have been sent a questionnaire to drop into the clinic instead. In the light of baby P and other tragic recent cases is it unreasonable to let a child go potentially unseen by health visitors from the age of 2 (the last official check we had) to when they start school at 5. I hardly imagine an abusive parent will fill this fact in on the questionnaire will they? I am usually the first person to moan about the state playing big brother and keeping stats but in this case I feel really strongly about them cancelling this check. AIBU or do other health authorities do the same?

I too think they are dropping an awful lot of checks
With my dd1 now nearly 8, I knew my HV really well
Now dc3 2.2 I think I have seen her HV about 5 times in total and one of those was because the first time I seen her she didn't have all the paperwork

YANBU

I think they simply don't have the resources to see all children that often. They make an assessment of how the family is coping, and if in their eyes you're doing OK, they pretty much never want to see you again. DS2 had one HV check-up at about 6 months - nothing since then. Fine with me as I don't have any worries about him (and if I did I'd go to the GP, not the HV anyway).

Basically it's about money - health visiting is a pretty poorly-funded service.

Maybe they are trying to concentrate the resources on the children who need help rather than checking over every single one - when the majority are healthy.

Children who are at risk are usually known to the authorities - it's what the authorities do with the information that seems to be where it all falls down.

Although it is reassuring to have someone look at your child and confirm all is well.

I agee with you! here they did not do the two years check, they sent a questionnaire. I mistakenly ticked the "i cannot cope with my child's tantrums" box. They gave me a call asking if it was a mistake as all the rest was fine. I said it was because it really was but, what if I had just not dared telling them that there was really a problem on that side (telling them it was a mistake when it really was a genuine concerne)?

YANBU

The health visiting teams are totally strapped for cash. Our local team has been told to cancel all classes (baby massage, makaton/Baby signing, etc).
Even the weaning visit was cancelled and we were invited to a group weaning session.
Any of the team staff who leave are not being replaced. DS2's HV told me that they have been told they should only be doing home visits or clinics and that if they have time to run classes like massage and signing then they should be offering their time to other teams to help out with their visits.

Did any of that make sense?!?

DD had the midwife come when she was born a few times.

Have never had a health visitor visit IIRC.

I can take her to the baby clinic for weighing etc if I want, but they don't check up on you (haven't been for 6 months )

And of course she saw the nurse when she had her jabs.

We did have to go to the GP for something - is it a 6 week check I think?

That's it so far (she is 18mo).

I suspect services differ greatly around the country. I had never heard of health visitors visiting until I came on here. Although now I write it down that does sound stupid given their name!!!

Totally agree. We moved areas when J was 2 and saw a HV when he was 2.2. She said his speech was very poor and that he might need speech therapy...and never came back or contacted us again.

The next contact we had with the health services was when I had self-referred via GP to the paeds at the hospital to check for ADHD/ autism. He was diagnosed with ADHD at nearly 5 and autism at 6. Stupid HV might have actually picked it all up earlier if she'd bothered to keep doing her job. Still about that.

And, like you say, abusive parents are allowed to keep their children invisible.

but surely increasingly children of that age group would attend preschools, Surestart and Children's Centres where social issues are increasingly picked up, parenting sessions held and referrals made. Is it more a redelployment of provision rather than none ?

giveme - exactly - had someone been available for you to see them sooner you could have got support alot earlier

My DCs get seen at 6 weeks and then for their jabs....and thats it.

I'm not qualified to tell if my child needs more than that ... thats what the HV is supposed to do IMO. SO why doesn't she/he?

It's not just social issues: our health visitor was the first to pick up that dd had mobility problems- I was full of it's-just-the-way-it-is and letting-children-develop-at-their-own-rate. Dd is now disabled.

The preschool which we attended twice a week were not qualified to recognise health problems, SureStart or parenting courses wasn't really something I ever thought of as relevant to us as I felt fairly confident about my parenting.

YANBU
HV funding and services have been cut back to the bone

When i was having my antenatal classes in 2006 my PCT had 25 health visitors and the class still had upwards of 25 women in.They then cut the HVs down to 15!In that area they didn't do 1yr check only 2yr, when i moved, the area i moved into didn't do 2yr check only 1 year! So ds missed out completely. I contacted the local HV and she called me once and that was it!They need more funding!!

I didn't have a HV call after DS was born. When I rang to query, I was told that they didn't know DS existed. I never got to the bottom of that, since we'd had plenty of visits from the midwife since leaving hospital.

I haven't seen them since DS was 6 months old. We were sent paperwork relating to the 2 yr check but the paperwork was so badly photocopied I couldn't make head nor tail of it.

Very poor service, I think. I should imagine that the service could be run much better with a bit of thought, instead of cutting budgets on a whim.

I'm also worried about this - Would be more worried if I had any confidence in my current HV (Last one was fab this one .

The point about if you have worries then should see a GP. I've got a few issues with ds1 (3) which I would like to discuss but wouldn't feel comfortable using the GPs time to do as they are pretty minor in the great scheme of things. (My DM brought be up in the mindset of only bothering gp with a leg dangling off).

He goes to nursery but I am informed that he is quiet and shy there (not quite the ds I know). What's a surestart centre?

I guess lots more issues will have to get picked up at school and be sorted there.

YABU.

I think that families with huge problems obviously have those problems when the baby is born and HV is routinely involved to be able to pick up on potential problems. Let's not forget Baby P was on SS books, they knew his family was a problem; that's why his case is such a tragedy. You get the questionaire-only treatment when you haven't done anything to raise suspicians up to a certain age (2yrs in OP's case).

So no, i don't have a problem with skipping a real visit and instead sending out questionaire to low-risk families (and as for abusive parents who don't return the Qnr, surely the missing Qnr will be a flag to HVs to chase why not).

They have to ration resources somehow, concentrating visits from age 2 or so on families already known to be at risk makes a huge amount of sense, imho.

Um...

What is a weaning visit?

What is a 12 month visit?

What, in fact, is a health visitor visit?

Different areas really do differ!

Really though - what/when does a weaning visit happen?

Mind you I think we all rub along OK with the service that we get around here. I suppose you don't miss what you've never had!

with dd (5) we had a 6 week, an 8 month and a 2 year check

with ds (2) we had an 8 week check and that is it!! We did get a telephone call to say we wouldnt be getting a 2 year check and to see if we had any issues.

I am sure that many children will slip throught the net due to parents who dont care or who dont know signs to spot if there was something wrong.

Maybe they're fed up of sneaking on here and reading almost only negative comments about themselves... fwiw my HV team are fab and I have a lot of time for them (just in case you see this )

I never sent ds2s questionaire back. they didn't query it so obviously didn't care anyway

Probably as important as the PND questionaire - I never returned that as couldn't be bothered

PND questionnaire???

Seem to remember questions like do you want to hurt yourself. Do you go out the house.

Not high tech - and obviously unimportant as I probably did have pnd but really couldn't be bothered with this faff!

Oh that one. the one where when you are depressed and hiding it you're suddenly going to fill in a form saying you feel like throwing your baby out the window

Chrikey there were a few moments I felt like throwing the baby out the window

Isn't it odd how that is always the feeling people get. Not put it in the bin, hide it in the shed, it's always throw it out the window!