Can health visiting make the difference expected?

Evidence suggests that the first few years of life is a critically important time that affects individuals’ future health and social well-being. The Government’s response to this evidence has been to plan to increase by 50% the size of the health visiting (HV) workforce (who provide much early years prevention) and to provide a new vision about how services should be delivered (Health Visitor Implementation Plan, Department of Health 2011-2015 [1]). The NNRU were asked to review the research evidence about the impact of health visiting practice on families. In this Policy+ we use the findings of the review to address: can health visiting make the difference expected, and what does it take to get the most out of this workforce?