What don't you like about your Health Visitor?

[piggyinthemiddle]

I have to admit that I've changed by name for this one. I've noticed that a lot of MNs don't like their HV or find her unhelpful and it seems to me that there may be a problem with HVs and/or the way the service is provided. As a MN and a HV I have been very disappointed but interested in this. It would be very helpful to me if you would share some of your experiences of the HV service and also say what you would have liked from your HV (please don't mention your HV by name for this).

Awww c-mon Paolosgirl - they can't be all that bad can they? I've had a few moans about my HV but I do find it useful being able to phone her and ask her advice when it's something I'm not sure if I should make an appointment with the GP for. I have never been able to speak to my GP on the phone and NHSDirect has always been anything but (direct - always have to wait for ages then they say something really useful like "have a chat with your GP") so at least there's someone there!

Well, all the ones where I'm from are absolute darlings. I consider them to be friends actually, but then we're lucky to be in a rural area and they always have time to talk and laugh and support, and they are really really pro breastfeeding. Wish they'd move in with us sometimes!

I don't think it matter what age you have a baby they treat you as if you are really stupid and have never read a book in your life.

My gripe is that I always see a different one and get conflicting advice like one says " use only water in babys bath" another says "no you shouldn't be using only water that dries her skin" in that are you completely stupid tome of voice.

We have 2 health visitors one i've only seen a couple of times but something about her I wasn't sure about.Don't know what just didn't seem to click with her. The other one however is fantastic. She is so friendly, never patronising and most importantly really good at what she does. She takes time to listen to you. Don't know if it's because I met her first when ds was born. The other thing I liked about her is that she was interested in me and how I was feeling and coping and still is, she's not just there for the baby, not like my midwife who came to the house after the baby was born. All she was interested in was breastfeeding. Giving birth I lost a lot of blood and should have had a blood transfusion but didn't. It was my hv giving me advice about taking liquid iron as well as my iron tablets not my midwife, she told me stop taking them because I hadn't been to the toilet. It turned out that my gp had to up the level of tablets I was taking.

Uwila, a health visitor is a community public health nurse. All HVs have trained as a nurse and then done an extra year's training to specialise in public health. Many HVs have also qualified as either midwives or paediatric nurses. The role of the HV is to provide advice and support to enable people to live healthy lives and avoid ill health. Although HVs are trained to provide this service for all ages of the population, they tend to focus on pregnancy and families with children aged 0-5 because there are so many things that families can do at that point to give their children a healthy start. You can ring them with any query you might have about your child's wellbeing or parenting or your own health for that matter. They will answer it if they can, otherwise they will be able to put you in touch with someone who can help.

Paolosgirl has a good point, a majority of HVs are nearing retirement age, to get onto a HV course you usually need to have quite a lot of nursing experience and even then it's difficult to get onto a course because there's so much competition.

One of the comments that seems to be coming up quite frequently is that HV's can come across as quite directive and patronising. In my experience that tends to be much more common among the older generation of HVs as they thought that their word was the only one and mothers should do as they are told! I know that when I went into HV (during the last 10 years) the approach that we were encouraged to take was quite different and that the emphasis was on providing advice which clients were free to take or not. However, your experience may have been different.

I was also a HV before and after I had a child which was quite interesting. When I was a HV pre-child one of the first questions that mothers would ask was whether I had children and many would make a negative inference when I said that I didn't. It was only when I was able to actually help them with a specific problem that I gained credibility. Now I have a child I seem to have automatic acceptance regardless of my capabilities as a HV. FWIW, a HV should be giving professional advice and this should be based on the current evidence, therefore, the personal circumstances of the HV should be irrelevant.

So, if you have a concern about your child's health, why would you contact the health visitor and not the GP? Do you find that HV are more approachable (obviously some of you don't)?

I ask because on the one or two occassions where I did see a health visitor, if ever I asked a medical question, she either told me something that I thought was just plain common sense or she told me to ask the GP. So it seems that it would be more efficient for me to just ring the GP. It saves me time because I only need to go to one appointment, and the NHS money because they only need to pay for one employee to see me.

Uwila I think HVs are meant to deal with a wider range of issues than just health, eg sleep, feeding etc. Actually a lot of the things that people come on Mumsnet for so probably we (mumsnetters) have less use for the HV than the general population.

DH took DD for her 7 month check this morning. I told him to ask about her wanting feeding in the night. Didn't really need to because I knew the answer and could have always started a thread on here. She is having four milk feeds and three solid meals a day so no, she does not need feeding at night. If we want to stop her we can either offer water or go cold turkey.

My current peeve is that we were sent appts for DD's 7 month check up - 9.30 today and DS's 3.5 yo recall - 4.00 pm today. DH and I both work full time today. DH has managed to fit DD's appt in and I took some time off for DS's. DH has just rung to say that DS's has been cancelled. So thats my holiday up the spout. I suppose she can't really help it (she's in court on a child protection case) but she did arrange the original inconvenient times in the first place.

Hi there,

I'm a HV too, thankfully my own HV is lovely. However, the woman I work with seems to have a talent for upsetting and intimidating some of the Mums on our caseload. I see at least five families who have quietly (or not so quietly) informed me that they have no confidence in her or that she has upset them. When I see a Mum in tears because she's been insensitive it makes me mad. The sad thing is that she is actually a very kind hearted soul who gets dreadfully worried if she thinks she's upset someone.

I love my job and I hope that I am approachable and friendly without being patronising. Having a toddler and also having had rip roaring postnatal depression following his birth has helped as I know how miserable that is. Hopefully, it makes me a better health visitor - or at least more understanding.

For those wondering why the HV hardly sees you - be grateful - it means that you are part of a nice, normal family that she doesn't have to worry about. Believe me there are families out there who are sick and tired of me on their doorstep. These are the families where there are concerns which may mean abuse of some kind going on (most often neglect for one reason or another).
There are also other families experiencing difficulties in one form or another - I'm currently seeing one woman of a school aged child weekly while she waits for counselling. She is so depressed that she is drinking to cope. I go in so that she has someone to talk to once a week to offload some of the pressure she is under.
I try desperately to give adequate support to those who need it - I probably don't succeed always but I really do try.

Anyway - bit of a ramble there

Mandy

I can never get an appointment with mine :(

Amanda - i wish that your post/attitudes had shown more sensitivity towards those mums who through mental health issues etc have more frequent visits from the health visitor. nice to know that if you have more frequent visits you are not "nice", "normal" and are a suspected child abuser!

i do think it is a real systemic/attitude problem with HVs - the dichotomy between "nice/normal" mums and "bad" mums. What about "mums" that need a bit of extra support - wouldn't that be a more sensitive way of putting things?

To be fair, Amanda did mention "families experiencing difficulties in one form or another" - isn't that equivalent to "mums that need a bit of extra support"?

Paolosgirl - loved your HV definition further down - suspect that for some of them you could be quite right.(My colleague for example ) Hope it doesn't define me though - trained as a nurse 1988, midwife 1991 and HV/Public Health nurse 2002. Have never held any desire to be a paediatrician.
I love my job and get on well with the parents I am in contact with. I especially love baby clinic and seeing the babies grow to toddlers. Also enjoy a good old gossip, chat and a laugh with the Mums attending.

Mandy

Don't u think it comes down to personality and character? I have met some who have an obvious love of children and that I think helps. I came across a stand-in the other week, I don't know what possessed her to become a HV because it was like she had absolutely no time for children at all - she made no attempt to make conversation with me (despite my best efforts) and did not attempt to "talk" to my ds, all she was keen to do was to promote her baby massage clinic - for which the cost was daylight robbery!

I must be grateful? I need my HV this week and she can't come.
My first HV doesn't think it is a good idea that she comes to visit me because I have built a rapport with the one who is off ill.
Will have to wait til the New Year instead.
Not adequate at all.

I have to say that I don't feel particularly grateful either about not seeing my HV. The Paediatrician who saw ds2 recently told me he thought it was awful that we have been left to cope alone with 2 autistic under-5's. I'm not sure that we would qualify as a "normal" family but we still hear nothing.

To mumfeelingtearful now. Apologies if you thought I was saying this Mum with a current mental health issue was an abusive Mum - perhaps I didn't put it very well. In fact she isn't at all - she is a wonderful Mum who needs the reassurance that she is doing a good job (which she is). I didn't mean my post to sound anything other than that and if you got the impression that I was being judgemental about her than I'm sorry but I wasn't and I'm not. I wasn't actually including her in with the abuse example - if it appeared that I was I am really sorry - it honestly was not intended. Believe me if mental health issues were a problem I am up there with the best of them after the dreadful postnatal depression I experienced. I was fortunate to have a supportive husband and family who kept me going for the nine months it took to recover.
Anyway - probably not putting this well either so will leave it there except to say that I really am sorry if I upset you.

Apologies - I appear to have annoyed everyone with my post. Sorry I didn't intend to.
I shouldn't have blithly writted about being grateful for not seeing your HV. Didn't mean it like that at all. To clarify - I just mean that if you are Mum/Parent to a perfectly, normal, happy 4 year old you're less likely to want the services of a HV than someone with a child or children who are having developmental or behavioural problems. That does not mean that you should not be offered support or an appountment if you want one. To those of you struggling with a child or children who have difficulties I think you are quite right - it's appalling and not a good service at all. There, in fact seems to be little back up out there (certainly an inadequate amount anyhow).
I am fortunate in that the area I work is small and I have only about 300 families on my caseload and 5 elderly clients. I try and give priority to those families who really need extra input. And no I'm not judging anyone wanting/needing extra input. We all need support of some kind at different points in our lives - mine came with the postnatal depression - horrendous time.
Anyway - before I dig myself into an even bigger hole I'll sign off and won't add anything else under this thread. I know not all HVs are supportive - I never saw the one allocated to me when my PND was at it's worst and I really would have welcomed some support from her at a time when I was crying every day. As a result of this I really do try and offer extra support when it's wanted and needed.

Mandy

No need to leave the thread, Mandy. It can be hard to get across what you mean on here. I've re-read my last post and it reads as though I was having a go at you. I wasn't. :)

Interested to hear your POV actually Mandy. And quite brave really when you know that HVs tend to get a bad time on Mn. Mine was only a minor winge really.

Amanda .. I also am interested to hear from HVs who sound human .. don't leave the thread .. I think you are making very valuable, and interesting points

Coppertop, I think that you should seriously consider contacting the service manager to find out what level of HV service is usually provided for families with children with special needs, in some areas they even have a specialist HV who visits the families. It sounds like you could do with a bit more support than you have been receiving up until now.

Uwila, ChristmasBOOZA has basically got it right. The HV role is very wide and includes parenting issues such as sleep, feeding, behaviour. They may be able to help with a medical issue depending on what it is. In a situation where you're not sure if she can help, it might be worth giving her a ring to see if she can help you or whether you need to see the GP.

Mental health is an area where there is quite a lot that HVs can do to support mothers. Most commonly we see women with PND but there are also a lot of women with other mental health problems and sometimes these may be quite longterm.

I've had a rather negative experience with HVs - my dd has been diagnosed with special needs since 2mo & we have seen the HV once since then. She refused to come out & visit us in the home, at a time when I could definitely have done with more support. I had to ask for Portage, and fill the form out with the GP - a job that I thought that the HV should have done with me.

However....it's not all bad as we have a fantastic community paediatric nurse who comes & visits us fortnightly, firstly to keep an eye on dd's weight & feeding probs, but secondly I expect to keep a beady eye on me. I actually look forward to her visits as we have a good gas over a cup of coffee, and I really feel that I can openly discuss some of the issues that we face.

So PIM, a mixed bag really (like any other profession!). I'm sure that there are some brilliant HVs about, it's just sad that ours couldn't rise to the challenge of giving us a bit of extra time when we needed it.

don't leave the thread - it's a dialogue and people being open with each other is the best way to improve relations between mums and health professionals.At the end of the day this internet thing is deuced difficult in terms of getting shades of meaning across.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread, it has been very interesting to hear your comments and I appreciate your honesty.