Health Visitors' Experiences of Child Health Promotion Policy Reform in England (Professional and Research: Peer Reviewed) (Report‪)‬

Introduction Child health promotion has always formed the core work of health visitors (Cowley, 2002). Programmes of child health promotion consist of schedules of immunisation, universal assessments and therapeutic interventions to enhance children's health and wellbeing (Kuo et al, 2006). In England, there has been much change to preventive health care for children over the last two decades, leading to a Healthy Child programme that sets out guidelines for a universal core programme, with targeted interventions for those experiencing the greatest health inequalities (DH, 2004, 2008). England has one of most highly targeted child health promotion programmes among developed countries (Kuo et al, 2006). Health visitors have a lead role in delivering the Healthy Child programme, particularly in assessing family health needs (DH, 2008).