Health Visiting

Read more about this page below

Healthcare services can be confusing....

Our website - CLCH Children's Health Matters is for parents and expectant parents to find information about the services available for children and families in the local area. You will also find helpful resources tailored to your child as they grow and develop.

You can also find out how to contact our staff directly if you have a concern about your child's health.

Midwifery

During your pregnancy you will be under the care of a midwife, midwives are trained health professionals who are experts in maternal health, birth and care of the new born baby. They will care for you during pregnancy, the birth of your baby and for at least 10 days after you have a baby, this will include offering a Vitamin K for you baby and a screening test known as the newborn blood spot. Some families will continue to see the midwife until 28 days after your baby’s birth, for these families they will also start to see their health visitor between 10 and 14 days and the health visitor and midwife may visit together to help support you to have a smooth transition from midwifery services to health visiting.

Health Visiting

Our health visiting teams work with mothers and fathers, their families, and community groups to promote the health and wellbeing of children and reduce inequalities from the antenatal period until your child starts school. 

Health visitors are trained nurses or midwives who have undertaken additional training in community public health nursing. You may meet a health visitor while you are still pregnant. 10-14 days after your baby is born your health visitor will visit to see you and your baby. You can ask them any questions you have and they will also provide information for you on the following topics:

  • Infant feeding – our health visiting teams are all trained to UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative standards for breast and artificial (formula) feeding
  • Safe sleep for your baby
  • Immunisations
  • Vitamin D
  • Your emotional health and wellbeing
  • How to access the health visiting service

The health visiting service work with all families until their child starts school and will deliver key health and development assessments for your baby at 6-8 weeks, 8-12 months and 2-2.5 years. They are also available if you have any queries or concerns between these times. Our role is to help parents learn and develop the skills required to bring up their children giving the new generation the best possible start in life.

You can find details about your local team and how to contact them on the 'I'm concerned who can I talk to' section below or in the local resources pages.

New and expectant parents

You can find helpful information and resources to support you prepare for your new baby and in those first few months on our New baby and parent resource page.

Your health visiting antenatal contact is your first introduction to the support, advice and services you can access from the health visiting team. You and your baby will have a health visitor until they start school so it's important you know what your local health visiting team offer and how you can contact them. Watch our video here to find out more.

In preparation for the arrival of your new baby you can access our new parent and baby resource pack here

Find your local HV

Children’s centre are places where families with children under 5 years can go to meet other parents in their community.

Each children’s centre is slightly different but you will often find groups and activities, midwife and health visiting appointments, baby clinics, infant feeding support and parenting courses.

Children’s centres are welcoming places where you can go if you need some extra support. They are experts in helping you find the support you need.

You can find your local children’s centre on your local authority website there is a link to this page on the Local resources section of our website.

As you are pregnant you should have been given information by your midwives regarding how and when to seek advice and help if you're concerned about yourself or your baby.

If you would like to contact your health visiting team before your baby is born you can contact us on the number or email below. Health Visitors are available to help and support in many different ways and can support you to access other services in the local community.

Merton 0-19 Integrated Single Point of Access (SPA)

Providing feedback on our services

It is important for us to hear what you think of our services so that we know what we are doing well and where we need to make improvements. Whether you wish to pay us a compliment, raise a concern or make a formal complaint, our patient advice and liaison service (PALS) team are here to help and all feedback given will be kept confidential.

You can find out more about how to provide feedback here.

If you would like to complete a patient story please speak to the team CLCH health team. Patient stories are a chance for you to share more information about your experiences of being cared for by our services. We collect patient stories in multiple different ways including videos, written stories, pictures and conversations with you that we then type. 

Contacting our PALS team:

  • Telephone: 0800 368 0412
  • Email: clchpals@nhs.net
  • Post: PALS team, Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust, 5-7 Parsons Green, London, SW6 4UL

Providing feedback on this website

We want this website to be helpful to you and your family and welcome feedback on how we can improve it. If you spot anything that's incorrect, confusing or have suggestions for how we can make it better please email us on clcht.health.matters@nhs.net this mailbox will be checked weekly and should not be used for urgent or clinical requests.

Accessibility tools