Has anyone changed their health visitor?

[Deafworm]

I wasn't sure where to put this but as it relates strongly to dd2's epilepsy and care plan I thought here might be best, hope that's ok

We moved to this area when dd3 was 3 months old and had a few issues with the health visitor, expressing concern that I was still breast feeding which was obviously why baby wasn't sleeping through etc. we only saw her a couple of times so I ignored and carried on.

Dd2 has epilepsy and needed a care plan for starting school, she came out and did it prior to April last year (can't remember exact date but dh went away in April and he was here when she came) she brought irrelevant info and actually left me quite concerned that irrelevant Info from another family was going to go into it ( not to mention the copy of quite detailed personal info from another family I was given to read).

Life got in the way a little and I didn't realise we hadn't had our copy. In the meantime dd2 had her dosage upped so school would need to administer them so tried contacting her multiple times to redo the care plan which she seems to have ignored. I had a meeting at school about other things 3 days before end of term and took advantage of being in the same room as the head and mentioned it, he said he would ring her.

Here's the bit that destroyed my trust in her. She then came out the next day and put a note through my door saying she had rung 'a dozen times' and visited a few times in the previous few days, we had no missed calls and this was the first note plus we had been in the days she claimed to have knocked so I'm afraid I really don't believe her.

I rang and scheduled and appointment and she came out and tried to tell me the school had refused the care plan, it was all their fault apparently they didn't feel it was necessary, they told me it was needed, I pointed out she said SHE would post out my copy and she continued to bluster about how poor it was of the school of course. We got the care plan done and into school on the last day of school.

Now I'm expecting dc4 and dd2 is heading in the direction of a medication change and I don't feel I can trust her, I've complained a couple of times but been fobbed off and I don't want to insult her to her colleagues but I'm not prepared to deal with a HV I don't trust going forwards.

Has anyone any experience of changing? And any clues on how to go about it without causing major problems?

1. You could find out if there is a HV drop in. I just stopped going to see my HV and went to the drop in instead. Thats difficult with a new baby though as they will want to do the PN check.
2. You could ask if there is a SN specialist HV, some areas have them and change to them.
3. You could change GP to a practice which has a different HV attached to it, or I believe you can change your maternity care to a different GP but keep your own for everything else, which presumably would mean the baby would get the new HV
4. You can contact the HV Manager and just request a change (thats the awkward way as you might have to explain why).

Ooh I'd never heard of a sn specialist HV, will definitely look into that. Unfortunately we are a one practice town and both the health visitors and midwives work out of the tiny hospital. So no way of avoiding her by changing gp. I think im just going to have to ring and deal with it, I just feel a little like I'm being unfair to her or overreacting which is what's holding me from dealing with it I think, every dealing with her has just been such hard work though.

I haven't seen our hv for years, shame we don't all have the sn hvs, don't know why this isn't a national thing. Try the school nurse or another professional for the care plan, it doesn't have to be the hv that does it.

Agree with the above posters. I wrote my dds epilepsy Care Plan in discussion with the school nurse and SENCO. At primary school the school nurse usually has set days/times when she visits and it is possible to make an appointment.
There is a template and information on the Epilepsy Action website which is very useful. See link www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/education/professionals for details. Hope this helps

Thank you all, we are still relatively new to all of this, dd has been diagnosed for 3 years but that was pre school she has only been at school since September and it's a whole different ball game. I think I needed a little nudge in confidence that I wasn't overreacting so thank you. The school are absolutely aware that she has said these things as I'm a governor, which is also why I have enough knowledge of the schools procedures to say confidently they absolutely didn't refuse the plan they were begging for it.

I think the health visitors fulfill the school nurse role here from what I've picked up as they initially said it would be done with the school nurse then she turned up. I will get in touch with the manager of the hv's ( please don't let it be her!) and go from there. Tank you all for the virtual kick up the bum. I've always been the rot not to 'bother' the drs etc and dd2 is challenging that, she has epilepsy as well as speech and coordination issues, she's under so many people I can't really 'not bother them'!

Can I push my luck and ask what you would expect to happen with iep's when the senco is off long term. Dds hasn't been updated since the summer term in nursery. Sorry its all so new and im not even sure where to find the info. Need to nag I think!

if the senco is off then someone else should be taking over the duties, it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask for an updated one. The sen cop is a good read if you haven't already, sets out what should happen.

I changed (13/14 yrs ago when dc were babies) just wasn't confident about the HV's sn knowledge. Had already got ds2 with ASD diagnosed when we had a lovely old HV who unfortunately retired before ds3 was born. I was concerned about ds3 behaviour which newly qualified HV didn't seem to think was a problem though he was diagnosed a few months later when I self referred to ds2's consultant. It was very straightforward and didn't seem a problem to change. I just asked for a different one and explained where I thought the one we had lacked experience and they were fine.

Thank you all, they set a time frame for another look at her iep for last term and so much has changed so I'm keen to get it down, while I have a good relationship with the staff in her room I'm keen to get things documented as we are a military family so could move t any time. Dd2 is proving to be such a steep learning curve, but we are getting there, thank you all so much for your help

You can nip the missed call / not in stuff in the bud without saying she's a liar. Write back (with a copy of her note) stating that you were in, and that there weren't any missed calls. Ask her to double-check the contact details in the file and computer system, as the important care plan hasn't come yet and you've also had the two incidents when data about families was mixed up. CC her boss and cc the GP. Job done

Then change HV, obviously.