Working with the London Borough of Merton to review Health Visiting Services.

We approached the project in 2 stages. In Stage 1 we carried out a needs analysis comparing local early years health and social care indicators to comparative boroughs and London and national averages. We also reviewed service activity and workforce data. Stakeholder engagement was the golden thread running throughout this stage. We used many engagement methods – one to one interviews, focus groups and surveys – to understand the nature of current services through the eyes of service users, health and early years professionals and commissioners.

In Stage 2 we examined the strength and weaknesses of current commissioning and provider arrangements and developed a series of recommendations for future commissioning. We augmented this with an output and costing model which estimated costs associated with specified levels of provision and staff skill mix.

Our project findings have supported the Department of Public Health within LBM to work with local partners in holistically developing Children’s 0-5 Public Health Services.