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In the first of a two-part series, Amanda Holland gathers together some of the outstanding work by health visitors in Wales during the pandemic, with comment from the chief nursing officer.
Two years have passed since Covid-19 first spread across the world, causing widespread illness and death. Today, individuals, families and communities continue to face unprecedented hardships as a result of the pandemic, affecting all aspects of public health. The long-term impact of Covid-19 is yet to be understood, with the most vulnerable in society disproportionately affected by persistent health inequalities.
Within the UK health visiting professions, the pandemic presented numerous challenges, such as restricted home visits and a depleted workforce due to staff redeployment, absence and retiring employees. The pace and scale of service delivery has been second to none as teams rose to the challenge of continuing to prioritise the needs of children, families and communities, and tackling enduring health inequalities head on.
As CPHVA chair for Wales and specialist community public health nurse (SCPHN) programme manager at Cardiff University, I was in a privileged position to observe and experience how health visitors and their teams demonstrated their crucial role of supporting children and families across the breadth of clinical, social and statutory need. Working tirelessly during such challenging times, with professionalism and autonomy, HVs and their teams created and developed innovative workarounds to ensure that families continued to receive the best possible service.
At the same time, I also witnessed the great dedication and creativity of SCPHN practice assessors and supervisors towards continuing to support the development of student SCPHNs, enabling them to reach proficiency, achieve their awards and become added to the third part of the NMC register as a HV or school nurse.
I feel privileged to be a nurse educator and registered HV in Wales, and as the country's CPHVA chair I wanted to celebrate the extraordinary work of HVs and their teams in Wales. In collaboration with Diane Massey from the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV), we gained support from senior leads of SCPHN and Welsh Government leads for early years to celebrate the health visiting profession in Wales. We asked HVs to tell us about their journeys during the pandemic and the ways in which they...