Appendix 1

Public Health Community Nursing Contract Re-procurement

Cabinet September 26th 2024

1. Health Visiting and School Nursing

The Public Health Community Nursing (PHCN) contract comprises the delivery of Health Visiting and School Nursing services in the city and is delivered by Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust (SCFT). 

Health Visiting and School Nursing offer four levels of service;

· Community

· Universal provided to all families

· Targeted for those families who require some additional support

· Specialist for those families with complex needs

2. Health Visiting

All families receive the 5 reviews recommended by the national Healthy Child Programme which are mandatory for Local Authorities to commission comprising;

· Antenatal

· New Birth visit

· 6-8 week

· 1 Year Review

· 2 Year Review

The service provides advice and support across a wide range of 0-5 yrs child and parent needs including mental health, infant feeding, weaning, sleep issues and signposting and referral to specialist health services.

In addition the Healthy Futures Team provides enhanced support for parents and families with additional needs such as young parents, refugee and asylum seeker families, parents being supported by children’s social work and families from Gypsy Roma and Traveller communities.

The service employs a specialist health visitor lead for maternal and infant mental health and one for infant feeding. It has achieved Stage 2 of the UNICEF Baby Friendly Standards for breast and infant feeding and is working towards Stage 3 in 2024.

3. School Nursing

The School Nurse team provides health and wellbeing support to pupils in school and to parents and carers including advice and support on mental health, sleep, sexual health, routine illnesses and signposting and referral to specialist health services.  The team also makes an offer to families which children and young people who are not in school via the Council’s Access to Education team. In primary schools the team provides a combined programme of Vision and Hearing Screening and the The National Child Measurement Programme - NHS (www.nhs.uk) at Reception and Year 6.

The team works closely with education providers, the Council’s Personal Social Health Economic Advisory Team for schools, the Drug Alcohol and Sexual Health team within Ru-OK?, the Public Health Schools programme, the Sexual Health and Contraception service and SCFT’s Immunisations team which delivers in school immunisations. SCFT commissions the  local Community and Voluntary Sector Youth Collective to deliver 1:1 youth work support to young people referred from the School Nurse team.

4. Contract Performance

The provider has consistently met or exceeded national and regional performance against the suite of benchmarked indicators for the Healthy Child Programme throughout the period of the contract. The service has recovered well from the pandemic and rapidly returned to face to face delivery alongside an enhanced digital offer. Parents have greater choice to request a virtual appointment and the service prioritises face to face delivery of reviews with an emphasis on ensuring safeguarding.

5. Key performance figures

Brighton & Hove performance against the suite of nationally benchmarked indicators is significantly better than England and the South east.

The most recent data 2023/24 shows continued improvement for Brighton & Hove across all 5 indicators.