DHSC:GAPH: Competency Framework for 0-5 Health Visiting Teams

The Healthy Child Programme sets out the role of Specialist Community Public Health Nurses (health visitors and school nurses), skill‑mix teams, clinical oversight, supervision, and expectations of competence across 0–19 delivery. It explicitly recognises the requirement for competent, suitably qualified staff delivering proportionate, evidence‑based interventions. While the guidance articulates what good looks like, and acknowledges the need for registered nurses to be accountable according to Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) guidance, there is currently no nationally agreed competency framework that translates these expectations into a consistent, practical description of the knowledge, skills and professional behaviours required of practitioners delivering the HCP across different roles and levels of service. This creates variation in how competence in skill mix teams is interpreted, developed, assured and commissioned locally.

Commissioning a national competency framework would address this gap and provide a shared foundation for workforce capability, quality assurance and service improvement.