Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many health visitors have been working in the NHS in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.

Nicola Blackwood, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health and Innovation: NHS Digital publishes information on the number of nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff employed in the National Health Service in England each month.

The December data is the most recent data available. The information is shown in the following table.

NHS Hospital and Community Health Service workforce statistics – number of health visitors as at December 2012-16, full-time equivalent

Source: NHS Digital

Note: Health Visitors are employed by a range of organisations, including NHS trusts, clinical commissioning groups, local authorities and private providers. Current data collections do not cover the complete range of these organisations. As a result, it is not possible to provide accurate data on the total size of the health visitor workforce.

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