Here, we provide some useful web links and reading suggestions to familiarise yourself with policy affecting health visiting. This can make more sense if you have the opportunity to discuss the role with a health visitor or even observe them in practice.
Our webpage ‘What is a health visitor?’ contains more information, and you can gain an insight into the breadth and depth of health visitors’ work with every family from these short iHV films “Health visiting in your community” and “Voices from Practice”.
Since September 2024, all UK-approved training programmes provided by Higher Education Institutions have been working with the 2022 NMC Standards of Proficiency for Specialist Community Public Health Nursing (SCPHN).
When making an application, ensure you are up to date with guidelines and policies pertinent to the home UK nation.
In England, student health visitor posts are advertised by each local authority/ health visiting provider organisation – you can contact health visiting providers for information – many posts are also advertised on NHS Jobs.
An Apprenticeship scheme has been applied to the funding of a few programmes in England since 2021 with some differences in funding, assessment and duration of the programme (typically 18 months). The Apprenticeship Standard for Specialist Community Public Health Nursing (SCPHN) has been updated to align with the NMC (2022) Standards of Proficiency for SCPHN and is now available through the Skills for Health webpages.
Explore the health visiting and school nursing pages of the Children and Young People’s Services Managed Knowledge Network (MKN).
Associated Pages
Careers in health visiting
The iHV has produced a Career Pipeline towards health visitor qualification and Career Pathway for Health Visiting which includes the different job roles in health visiting teams.
Making an application
After you have reviewed the role of the health visitor and considered your personal attributes that fit with this role, start planning your application.