8
Acknowledged
Decimated health visitor workforce threatens government ambition for children's early life outcomes.
Conclusion
The Government will fail to deliver on its ambition to give every child the best start in life unless it takes urgent action to rebuild the health visitor workforce, which has been decimated over the last 10 years. (Conclusion, Paragraph 55)
Government Response Summary
The government acknowledges the concern about the health visitor workforce and explains that the 10-Year Workforce Plan, due in spring 2026, will address all relevant staff groups, including health visitors, through a clear roadmap covering recruitment, training, and retention. It also states that overall workforce growth will slow, and precise future numbers will not be set.
Government Response
Acknowledged
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
We recognise the committee’s concern that a workforce plan must be credible, funded and deliverable. The plan will therefore set out a clear and phased delivery roadmap for all relevant staff groups, including those providing maternity, neonatal, health visiting, paediatrics, primary care and mental health services for babies, children and families in all settings. It will detail the actions required across recruitment, training, retention, skill mix, leadership and service redesign to address workforce pressures and build long-term sustainability. We have committed to publishing regular workforce planning. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will include updated workforce modelling and its underlying assumptions when published in spring 2026. The updated modelling will be subject to independent scrutiny by our appointed external scrutiny panel. While we recognise workforce challenges, we have been clear in the 10 Year Health Plan that workforce growth must slow to ensure the NHS workforce is on a sustainable footing for a future where staff are better treated, have better training, more exciting roles and are empowered to achieve much more. We continue to work through how the plan will articulate changes for individual professional groups. We remain committed to working with partners to ensure the plan is ambitious, forward looking and evidence-based. While the plan will be grounded in the best available data, modelling and clinical evidence, it would not be responsible to attempt to fix precise workforce numbers a decade into the future. Demand, technology, new roles, productivity improvements and models of care will continue to evolve, and so will our workforce planning. The plan therefore needs to be agile and responsive to change, setting out the actions needed to create a sustainable workforce that is fit for the future.
Source
Committee
Health and Social Care Committee
Report
5th Report - First 1000 days: a renewed focus
22 Jan 2026
HC 802
Addressee Bodies
Department of Health and Social Care
Timeline
Recommendation age
0.5 yr
Report published
22 Jan 2026