Our role is to offer information and support to families through the early years, from pregnancy to primary school entry.

Every family with a child under the age of four and a half has access to a health visitor and their team. The service is delivered through home visits, contact in the community and telephone calls as necessary. This is a non-emergency service providing health education, advice and guidance.

Health visitors work with other services such as GPs, midwives, school nurses and social workers. Health visiting teams usually consist of health visitors, community staff nurses, community nursery nurses, early years outreach workers and team assistants.

The aim is to promote the health and well-being of you and your family. The actual service provided will vary according to a personalised assessment of each child and family’s own needs and evidence of what will work for them.

We offer 5 key contacts to all families:

• antenatal health promoting review
• new baby review 10-14 days after birth
• 6 to 8 week review
• 9 month health and development review
• 2 year health and development review

When your child is 9 months and two years old, your local health visiting team will invite them for a health and development review. This is an opportunity to talk about your child’s progress, learn more about what you can do to help their development, and make sure that you have any support that you may need.

We also offer advice and support through our ParentLine service. ParentLine is a confidential text messaging service for Manchester parents and carers of children aged 0-5. The service is run by a dedicated team of health visitors who can provide advice and support on a range of topics including parenting, sleep, continence, immunisations, mental health, minor illness, behaviour, infant feeding, child development, healthy lifestyles and general health concerns. Visit ParentLine page here.

• By EMIS internal referral – for Manchester Local Care Organisation staff only
• By post to Team Clinic address as listed for your local HV team below
• ParentLine text service
• Download the referral Form [WORD]

Families can also contact their local Health Visiting Team by telephone should they require support.

Additional Information

The Personal Child Health Record (or ‘red book’) is a record of your child’s health and development, it is yours to keep. The health visitor will go through this with you on the first visit. Please remember to take the book with you to your child’s health appointments.

Useful Links

• BBC Tiny Happy People Activity and play ideas to support early communication skills.
• Institute of Health Visiting – top tips for parents A range of useful factsheets around parenting and child health and development.
• ERIC UK Resources on toilet training.
• Change4Life Healthy lifestyles information for children and families.
• Lullaby Trust Safer sleep advice.
• Best Beginnings Baby Buddy App Interactive pregnancy and parenting guide.
• Red Cross First aid for babies and children.
• Hungry Little Minds
• I CAN
• The Communication Trust
• Learning to Talk Parent-Facing Interactive Tool
  (PDF format available to download from E-Learning for Health)
• Start4Life Learning to Talk
• The Manchester Local Offer (Disability and Special Educational Needs) – The Manchester Local Offer brings together information in one place. It helps children and young people with SEND up to the age of 25 and their parents understand what services and support they can expect locally. This includes their statutory entitlements which are required by law.