RESUMO
This is the second paper in a series of three, drawing on the experience of providing evidence to the Health Select Committee's 2008 inquiry into health inequalities. Material submitted has been adapted and expanded according to three common and often controversial questions. One member of the committee enquired about the relevance of education and training to recruitment issues in health visiting, asking why it is necessary to be a nurse and what would be the barriers to changing this arrangement, which has been in force since the 1960s.This paper summarises some of the longstanding discussions about this issue, which has rarely been off the agenda, and proposes that, since health visiting is no longer in statute, the time has come to take a radical approach and to change current arrangements.
Assuntos
Enfermagem em Saúde Comunitária/educação , Bacharelado em Enfermagem/organização & administração , Educação de Pós-Graduação em Enfermagem/organização & administração , Enfermeiros Clínicos/educação , Currículo , Previsões , Necessidades e Demandas de Serviços de Saúde , Humanos , Licenciamento em Enfermagem , Enfermeiros Clínicos/organização & administração , Seleção de Pessoal , Aposentadoria , Critérios de Admissão Escolar , Fatores de Tempo , Reino Unido , Recursos HumanosRESUMO
Questions asked by managers, commissioners and policy makers to find out what is, or should be, happening within health visiting services can seem immensely helpful in focusing the mind or clarifying key points. Alternatively, they may feel hostile and accusative, if their starting assumptions are alien to the everyday experience of health visitors. This paper is the first in a short series of three that draw on the experience of providing evidence to the Health Select Committee's 2008 inquiry into health inequalities. A formal process of seeking written evidence was followed up with specific questions in oral session, asked by committee members, trying to find out about how health visiting services relate to health inequalities. This line of questioning reflects concerns expressed elsewhere about the variability of health visiting services across the country and the lack of clear alignment to areas of deprivation, leading to calls for an increase in targeted services, instead of universal ones. This paper explores the notion of 'caseload', the distribution of services according to levels of deprivation and delivery of a universal or targeted health visiting service.