Crappy Health visitor

[mumma224]

I’ve been having issues with my HV for the last year, during my pregnancy I heard all the horror stories of overbearing health visitors, I on the other hand have what seems to be the most slack HV. In an ideal world, I’d be happy that I’m being left alone, happy that she has no concerns when it comes to my parenting, but I have concerns about my daughter and she is nowhere to be found. At my daughters 1 year review I mentioned concerns about her speech, she said we’d monitor it and she’d see my daughter every 3 months, I haven’t seen her since that review. She is near impossible to get ahold of. There was one occasion where she didn’t turn up and then messaged me 2 weeks later to say she broke her phone; sure you did. My daughter is now 2, her speech has not progressed, she can say 2 words, seems to understand very little and has so many meltdowns a day which I’ve put down to her being frustrated that she can’t communicate and isn’t being understood. I heard from my HV recently to book in for a 2 year review, she wanted to refer me to a community nurse to do the review as there ‘are no concerns’, knowing full well I’ve been trying to get ahold of her for the past year and there are infact concerns. If I missed appointments, I’d be reported to someone of the sort, why do they get to miss appointments and waste my time?? I have a feeling she won’t bother turning up for the 2 year review and if that happens I need to know what to do going forward.

can you ask for another HV instead of this waste of space?
is it worth asking the GP for a referral to a speech therapist?

HVs can do a fair amount, and she can make referrals for speech therapists etc, which is why it’s so frustrating.

I think that’s what I’m going to have to do, if she misses the next appointment I might just start doing everything through the GP purely to avoid another like her.

I asked the nursery to refer to speech and language when I had the same issue.
referral was done that day

Do you have to deal with her specifically? My local area has a number to call when any of the health visitors will call you back to give advice not just the one who comes to the house.

I've had 3 or 4 different ones do the home appointments over the years so not just one.

Unfortunately yeah. We get assigned someone and that’s who deals with us, I always found it incredibly hard getting in contact with postpartum sort of care and when I did, the message would just get passed along to her, for her to deal with it. She was great for the first year but when I started expressing actual concerns, not so great. I guess I’d need to make a complain to get someone else but that’s not something I wanted to do. I know a lot of people suggest going to the GP but these issues are literally what the HV is there for x

Ah that's a shame, must be area specific as I've always had a really easy time contacting ours.

In that case I'd unfortunately have to go down the complaint/asking for a different health visitor option as she's literally affecting your daughters development by not doing anything. I'm not sure of the exact age limits but at 2 they can definitely refer her for speech and language help as my son was. Nursery referred my son but then the health visitor helped to move things along. It also takes a long time for it to be your turn to be seen so it's worth getting that to happen as soon as possible. If she goes to nursery they can refer her too though.

Slightly missing the point but has she given you any assessments to fill in before the 2 year review and if so, do you know which ones they are?