Health visitors, are they all useless?

[1738hey]

In my experience and many others on here, health visitors know very little, a lot of what they do know is opinion based or old fashioned.
Mine actually told me completely incorrect information about the milk I decided to put my baby on and would've caused baby a lot of stress if I hadn't done my own research on Aptamil website then spoken to GP, so I don't have contact with her anymore.
Can I hear positive HV stories?
No offence to any HV's, perhaps more up to date training is needed? Or maybe I and a few others have just had very bad experiences and the majority know their stuff!

It is possible to get a BSc to become a nurse via access courses rather than a high quality foundation education. When I had my children 25 years ago nurses did not need degrees and many SENs had converted to SRNs as they were then through the experience route. In the late 70s you cd become an SEN with 2 O'Levels.

I appreciate nurses are now a graduate vocation but not many nurses go into nursing if they are clever enough to become Drs.

@OhTheRoses
No HV has the right to make anyone feel like an utter failure no matter what and anyone who does, regardless of how knowledgeable they are; whether they're a lactation consultant, a paediatrician, a surgeon or a neuro scientist, they're doing their jobs very badly if they try to make someone feel like that.

However, with all due respect, you have a very naive understanding about what a HV does and a very simplistic and extremely offensive view of what a HV is or how they get to be there. I'm sorry you have had such a poor experience with your own HV; as I said, so did I so I completely understand that but why choose to insult, minimise and dismiss an entire profession because you didn't like your experience? Should I say all solicitors are a waste of space because my solicitors are taking an age to complete my house purchase? All hotel cleaners are useless because the glass in my hotel had a lipstick stain once? No chefs can cook because the meal I had the other week was too salty?
What do you do? Is every single member of your profession always 100% amazing and 100% excellent at their job and therefore no one could ever possibly question the validity of how hard you work based on their experiences with others from your profession?
You have no idea what being a HV entails and you have absolutely no right to be so blatantly rude about literally thousands of incredibly hard working HVs across the country because you didn't like your HV. I worked far longer hours (well above what I was contracted to or paid for) and invested myself far more emotionally as a HV than I ever did in any other role as a nurse that I had before or the higher paid (technically) more specialised role I do now and for all the individual cases of poor practice you think you see, there are a thousand more fantastic bits of practice that go on that no one ever acknowledges or says thank you for.

I never had only one hv, we had a different one each time and then lick of the draw for clinics. They ranged from v helpful to lovely but useful through to downright rude and incorrect. I've have two different hvs from the same team give me opposing advice more than once and so I now go with the listen but take it alongside my own research frame of mind.

I do wish there was more continuity and up to date training going on.

Experience my friends have had

• One told the mum to give the 2 week old pure orange juice for constipation

• One told the mum to use undiluted dettol to clean the newly circumsticed willy

• Four different midwives said baby was latching and drinking

Maybe very nearly died

Im not saying there isnt great ones but.......

Baby very nearly died

@OhTheRoses
I appreciate nurses are now a graduate vocation but not many nurses go into nursing if they are clever enough to become Drs.

Wow! Just Wow!

@Frenchsticks the point you have missed entirely is that if women have no option about who their hv is and for as long as it is an imposed service then those imposing it should be obliged to ensure it is 100% tip top.

If I don't like the service in an hotel I don't go back; similarly a restaurant or a hairdresser. If my solicitor were taking too long to exchange contracts on a property I would ask why and be told why. When I asked my hv's boss what the role of my hv was I was told it was to make sure I was speaking tò my baby enough for him to develop speech. I trust that actually isn't the role of an HV.

The year after ds was born the head of the HV Association was published in The Times as saying the role of the HV was to teach ignorant women the three Cs - cooking, cleanliness and communication.

With the greatest respect to every hv in the land, if you think that is your role, or what I, or any other educated woman may have needed, not one of you is entitled to set foot into the home of a woman who is your equal without introduction or appointment.

For as long as HV remains a universal service then it has to be exemplary. If my solicitor does a bad job the bill is renegotiated; if an HV (or any other health professional) does a bad job one can't claim a tax rebate

@OhTheRoses

That's not what a universal service means. The service is available to everyone but it is not now, not has it ever been mandatory. I didn't like my experience with my HV, I didn't go back to her. They have no right to impose themselves on you. You are being inexcusably rude about a profession you barely understand.

@Frenchsticks why the WOW. How many nurses do you know with Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry, Biology at A* at A'Level or 43 points or more at IB. Most GPs have that.

@Frenchsticks are you saying that nowadays all women are told the service is optional? That was only confirmed to me by the Trust CEO after I complained formally. It is also not consistent with more recent findings by the Maternity Alliance who have had to advocate on behalf of women who have been threatened with SS for withdrawing ftom the service.

@OhTheRoses

You are again doing nothing more than highlighting your ignorance about the entire nursing profession. Nursing is not doctoring for stupid people. Nurses do not want to be doctors. They are completely different. Would you say the same to physiotherapists? Speech and language therapists? Occupational therapists? Nursing is a profession and a career entirely in its own right and a doctor could no more just up and decide to become a nurse one day instead of being a doctor anymore than a nurse could a doctor.

@OhTheRoses
Perhaps you should have used some of all that high intelligence you have to look into your rights as a parent a bit more than simply relying on one person's (incorrect) opinion. The health visiting service has NEVER been mandatory. They can threaten social services all they want and maybe there was genuine cause to do so; I have made countless referrals to social services myself so I know with absolute certainty that not engaging with a HV alone is not going to get a look in unless there are a lot of other worries on top and the sudden refusal to engage with HV services is considered to significantly increase the risk to the child.

Dd's HV was useless. She panicked because Dd had a heart condition. Sent me to A&E because dd did not gain enough weight at one weighing. I waited 4 hours at A&E to see a doctor who had no idea why dd was there and dd and I ended up so stressed. Told me to eat more cakes so that my breastmilk was fattier and dd could gain weight . She was just making it up.

For ds, who thankfully was healthy, at weigh ins, I just nodded and smiled at whatever sleep training the HV (different one) said I should do and ignored her. Saw her the minimum number of times and never felt the lack.

Saratustra: Also tbh I find the whole thing quite intrusive. I’m not British, and I couldn’t understand why I had to put up with it on top of all the new mum stress.

I agree.

Which is why they get conflated with social services and new mothers think they have to put up with it. Like I say, nod and smile and ignore.

I haven't read the entire thread but can I interject to say my HV possibly saved my life? She realised something was 'off' with my relationship with XP and doggedly kept visiting me until I eventually trusted her enough to tell her about repeated incidents of domestic violence/assault. I was at this point very isolated and didn't have anyone else to talk to. She then supported me through the process of getting him to leave and setting boundaries around him seeing our son. I'm very grateful.

MsFye I am glad your HV persevered and got you and your son to a safer place. My HV did ask questions that were trying to suss out domestic violence or PND.

When my dd was born with a heart condition, she was hyper vigilant whether I had PND - I did not and I think she was a little disappointed.

I've had experience with 5 different HV and they were all incapable idiots.

3 times they failed to turn up to the scheduled appointment. When I called they acted surprised and said the HV was sick and apologised nobody called to let me know. I find this hard to believe with 3 different HV?!

In my LA the HV do the hearing screening during a home visit. I was assured it was glitchy technology and that failed tests happens all the time. The HV proceeded to say that my boy can 'obviously hear' due to his responses.... he's profoundly Deaf. I was also given books and encouraged to read to my son and use baby language.... the HV couldn't even remember he is deaf during the appointment let alone in any subsequent appointments.

I was told my boy was underweight on 2 occasions. The HV then went on to say how breastfeeding perhaps wasn't the best option as I couldn't be sure how much milk he was actually getting..... he was exclusively breastfed, gaining weight and meeting all milestones. Ridiculous guidance from a young HV.

Finally, at our 10 month review, I was sent a big load of paperwork tick box things to fill out in preparation for a phone appointment. I waited for the call but it didn't come (yep, staff sickness again!). When they called the following week (unexpectedly), I went with the flow and continued with the appointment, retrieving the paperwork I had completed in advance. The HV was very concerned by his lack of verbal communication (despite him signing 10+ words on his own!) and told me I should stop relying on sign language and use more spoken language to encourage him to talk... WTF?!

At that point, I submitted a complaint and insisted I be withdrawn from any future services offered by the HV team. They were each a bunch on incapable, embarrassingly prejudice, subjective plonkers.

I have no doubt there are some brilliant HV out there but alas, I didn't meet them.

A lifetime ago and I still remember my health visitor, and for that matter my midwife. They were both old school and wonderful and gave me good advice and support. Both of them were there for all of my children, and are probably both dead by now. They were legendary in my town and I looked forward to their visits. They are your friend IMHO

I opted out as they were pointless. Anything that requires more than a Google you need to go to the doctor anyway.

‘Frenchsticks’ Thank you for supporting the nursing profession. What an extremely rude, disrespectful and untrue comment for ‘Ohtheroses’ to make. In 20 years of working as a nurse, I only worked with one nurse who wished to be a Dr. She retrained and became one. I had the academic ability to become a Dr (and was asked throughout my career by the Consultants, would I consider it) as did many of the nurses that I worked with but the nurse and Dr roles are SO different. It simply doesn’t appeal to the majority of nurses that I have worked with and indeed myself.
Regarding health visitors, I think it is dreadful that so many families are let down by them. I was so lucky with mine (I was also fortunate that I knew exactly what their role was and what one could expect) however my sister in law had a really poor experience with her health visitor who was unhelpful, disinterested and just generally uncaring (unfortunately, she only confided in me years later or I would of course have supported her and assisted her to access the correct care). It is so wrong and unfair that some get ‘cared for’ by a sub standard medical ‘professional’. All our codes of conduct are extremely clear and it is truly unacceptable for someone working in the profession not to adhere to it.
It is so unfair that in a family’s time of need, the very people that should be supporting, advising, guiding and assisting them just don’t.

@Anordinarymum

A lifetime ago and I still remember my health visitor, and for that matter my midwife. They were both old school and wonderful and gave me good advice and support. Both of them were there for all of my children, and are probably both dead by now. They were legendary in my town and I looked forward to their visits. They are your friend IMHO

I think those old school HVs worked in that time and setting. But today, with so much information available on the internet and books, some of the HV advice can sound a little patronising or just wrong to mothers who are more clued up on parenting. I don't want my HV to be my friend, just a professional who does not give misleading advice to a woman with her first baby in a vulnerable time.

By my second baby, the HV backed off more. Obviously a second time mother is more clued up and is also less prepared to put up with dodgy advice.

Oh did @ohtheroses pop up with her usual rubbish about nurses wanting to be doctors. She rarely posts anything positive on threads though so not surprised she came up with this old rubbish again.

I worked for nearly 30 years as a nurse. There's not enough money in the world which would have persuaded me to be a doctor.

Plenty of doctor friends utterly burnt out by their job.. Good luck to those who do the job, you have my admiration but make sure you look after yourselves too.

I don't think I have ever said nurses want to be Drs. I said they don't have equivalent qualifications even to consider applying because fundamentally they are not as intellectually able. If I need to take advice I take it from a person who is able to critically analyse evidence based research. In my experience nurses are never able to answer my questions and either tell me things that are not correct upon further exploration or say "I don't know, you'll need to ask the Dr".

My HV has always been a superstar she has always had my corner and fought for me. Even emailing dietician/allergy team managers when one department pointed to another to get an answer.

I think some of it come down to perception like any profession there are good and bad