National cuts to public health budgets have been blamed for radical changes to Cumbria’s health visitor and school nurse services.

Cumbria County Council’s cabinet backed the proposal, which will see children’s health spending cut by more than £700,000.

However they stressed that rather than simply making cuts, they have re-drawn the whole system and made a lot of positive changes.

At present there are the equivalent of 11 full time school nurses working across Cumbria.

This system would be axed and they would be replaced with six ‘health coordinators’ to focus on the health needs of children in each district.

Schools would also be able to “buy in” services where they felt there was a specific local need.

There would also be a reduction in health visitors – from 87.5 full-time equivalents to 71 – and case loads would increase.

They would still carry out essential child health checks but clinics would reduce. A specialist team would also take on the most complex cases.

But following concerns raised following scrutiny they have tweaked the proposals to reduce health visitor caseloads to safer levels.

Councillors said the changes were a result of central Government cuts – with £2m slashed from their ring-fenced public health grant to date, and a further £1m expected to be lost by 2020.

Council leader Stewart Young said that it could worsen further in future if local government is forced to rely on business rate income rather than national grants.

“I think they will remove the public health grant altogether and say we’ve got enough from business rates.

“That really does worry me. I think that will represent the greatest threat to public health services in this country since public health began because pressures on other statutory services will be so great it will be difficult for local authorities to protect that,” he said.

Mr Young said they were doing the best within the resources they have, and accused the Government of favouring traditional Conservative areas when dishing out funding.

“When you look at the figures it’s so blatant they are protecting areas politically and other areas are suffering.

“So we start from a low base then get cut further,” he said.


Anne Burns Anne Burns, cabinet member for children’s services, said she understood why changes were needed but admitted she had “reservations”.

She said often a health visitor turning up at the home is the first person to make contact with vulnerable families, and called for regular checks to ensure nobody is falling through the net.

Ian Stewart, cabinet member for public health and communities, said these reviews are already planned.

He praised public health director Colin Cox for drawing up a plan that used the available budget in the best possible way.

And he said it was time everyone, including the schools themselves, started taking responsibility for the health and well-being of children.