Health visitor/Advisor..

[ShoooOK]

Are they really any good?I rarely contact her.. But when I do she is never to be found either off or never answers the phone..
I had to bring daughter to GP for visit asked her a question and she's like, have you spoken to your health advisor.
When I tell her she never answers the phone.. She was like that's terrible specially when you need her... And I'm like sitting there like yeah I already know that...
And when the health advisor use to visit and I'd ask a question that she wouldn't know the answer to she'd be like did you bring her to the GP... Bring her to the GP and its like did you ask your health advisor?

Are your health advisors any good

Health visiting services have faced quite bad cuts / staffing shortage, in many areas only just getting through the mandatory screening consultations or not even that. Not much consolation to parents to know that I imagine...

I did an 8 week job placement with a team of health visitors. Most of their time was used for seeing families with additional needs; children with complex health needs, parents who are struggling to cope, and those who are known to social services.

On one particular day I was in 3 meetings with different multi disciplinary teams and parents. All about safeguarding concerns, and whether the children were safe to continue living with their parents.

They took all day. Notes were written as I drove us from one meeting to the next. She had to catch up on her phone calls that evening after she had finished her shift.

The HV service is so stretched and they are constantly expected to do more with less. I think your GP could be a little more understanding about the HV service, but really it depends what your question was, and whether it warranted a visit to the GP.
Some health visitors qualified as paediatric nurses, midwives, and adult nurses. So their knowledge base is largely dependent on their qualification and previous experience.

Obviously, within all professions there are the ones who are crap at their job, you might have one of those. But the many HVs I have met do the best they can, unfortunately it sometimes means that the families who need the least support get less involvement than they might like.