Health Bill [HL]

Before the Minister replies, perhaps I may briefly make one or two points relating to subsection (2)(f) of the list in the amendment, which states: "““the NHS will support and value its staff””." Ten years ago when I first entered your Lordships’ House, I visited housing in the East End of London with a health visitor and was struck by her ability to access very vulnerable families. Over the years since then I have intermittently come across health visitors and I am sad to say that each time I meet them they have expressed serious concerns about how they are being treated and about recruitment and retention of health visitors. I was very glad to learn of the success of family/nurse partnerships and I am pleased that the Government are planning to invest in recruiting more health visitors. However, I have been concerned about the treatment of health visitors and I should be most grateful if the Minister wrote to me about what specifically was being done to ensure a more secure future for this important service. The general principle which I see very much in terms of the child and family workforce is that if one invests in the workforce and values it, one will deliver a good quality of care and good outcomes for children and families, and in the health service. This is one principle that is absolutely right and probably will not change over time. Furthermore, there has been a great deal of change in child and family services, made with the best of intentions, and much of it has been welcome. However, the difficulty of constant change is that it can tend to demoralise the workforce. Therefore, supporting and valuing staff may also make policy-makers always think before they make further changes that may be detrimental to the morale of the workforce.