Barnsley health visiting team celebrate their achievements
Staff working in the Trust’s health visiting services in Barnsley came together in May to; celebrate the achievements they have made in the previous 12 months since becoming an Early Implementer Site, share the good practice they have developed with colleagues and look forward to the future.
Hosted by the service, the event featured a number of presentations and workshops that explored the work the service has done since becoming an Early Implementer Site, recognised the importance of partnership working to meet challenges, and the focus on children and young people’s services going forward locally, regionally and nationally.
In February 2011 the Government launched a four year transformational programme the ‘Health Visitor Implementation plan 2011- 2015; A Call to Action’ which committed to increase the number of health visitors in the country and transform the service. The plan called for Early Implementer Sites to be established to provide a rapid improvement and transformation programme with the expectation that these would deliver the new health visitor service model/family offer by 31st March 2013. The overall aims being to improve public health outcomes, provide personalised care and connect families with health and wider community resources. Barnsley health visiting services were selected to be an Early Implementer Site in 2012, as part of the second roll out of the programme across the country.
Health visitors are trained nurses or midwives with specialist training in family and community health. They work with parents and their families to help improve their health and wellbeing.
Anita McCrum Lead Nurse for Health Visiting explained, “Being selected as an Early Implementer Site was a great achievement for our Trust and for Barnsley as it recognised that our local service was already seen as offering best practice to local people and would be suitable to roll out the new programme.
“The celebration in May was an opportunity to reflect on the achievements we have made 12 months on, recognise the challenges we have faced during that time and look forward to the future.
“It was great that so many colleagues from across the sector attended including NHS services, local commissioners, representatives from partner organisations, universities and local councillors as this was also a great opportunity to share what we have learnt and our vision for the future.
“We have also had the opportunity to share our good practice and innovation at a number of regional and national events this year including an Early Implementer Site Ministerial Event in February and a Celebration of Leaders in Nursing event at Number 10.”
During the event, Heather Marsh, head of public health, South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw for NHS England shared her thoughts on the achievements that the service had made and offered an insight into how her team would be pursuing the agenda of improving the health and wellbeing of children and families locally and regionally in the coming months.
Tim Breedon, director of nursing at the Trust also shared his thoughts on the importance of partnership working to ensure that our staff can continue to provide high quality service to local families. He also reinforced the Trust’s commitment to children and young people’s services, supporting the significant investment already made in health visiting and building on the capacity we’ve got to look at what else we can do to add value to the lives of local people.
Sue Hare, head of service, joint commissioning, policy and Trust governance at Barnsley Council also made a presentation highlighting how the local authority will be commissioning services for children and families in Barnsley over the next 12 months.
A presentation were also made by Sally Batley and Gavin Speers from the Department of Health – health visitor programme, regarding the progress of Barnsley health visiting services as an early implementer site and the achievements that have been realised in the last 12 months.
Anita continued, “The event was a great opportunity to reflect on all that we have achieved in the last year. We will now focus on how we can use this to move to the next level, sharing the good practice we have developed and implementing actions to ensure that we can continue to provide high quality services to local children and families in Barnsley.”
To find out more about health visiting services in Barnsley contact Anita at anita.mccrum@swyt.nhs.uk
