We commissioned YouGov to ask nearly 5,000 parents what they thought of health visitors. We also put in freedom of information requests to the 151 newly formed Primary Care Trusts in England to see how many health visitors they employed.
Our results were dramatic. Parents love health visitors. They overwhelmingly want parenting and health advice from them. Yet when we asked trusts for numbers we found huge variations up and down the country with health visitors vulnerable to savings cuts.