1862

1994Pre-registration HV education

absorbed into a post-registration nursing framework for Specialist

Community Health Care Nursing. In this, the former 51-week programme

of study was reducedto a minimum of 32 weeks.

1st January 1997The HVA becomes the Community

Practitioners’ & Health Visitors’ Association (CPHVA)

1st May 2007Amicus and the Transport & General Workers Union for to create Unite

the Union

2001AEEU and MSF merged to create

Amicus

1990The HVA merged with and became a

part of Manufacturing, Science and Finance (Union)

1862Manchester and Salford Ladies Health

Society appointed the first "health visitors".

The women were ‘respectable working woman,’ initially known as a ‘sanitary visitor’. They were to visit the homes of the poor and ‘assist in

promoting comfort, urging the importance of cleanliness, thrift and

temperance on all occasions’

1896Foundation of the Women Sanitary

Inspectors Association (WSIA). Starting life as a discussion group

composed of the handful of middle-class working women who were

employed by several London boroughs as Women Sanitary

Inspectors. This was a forum for exchange of information and ideas and in its early years it was small,

informal and London based.This group was a reaction to the all male Sanitary Inspectors Association who refused to allow women to join.

1915Renamed Women Sanitary

Inspectors’ & Health Visitors’ Association (WSIHVA)

1918WSIHVA formally became a Trade

Union and affiliated to the Women’s Trade Union League

1924 WSIHVA, led by its chairperson Amy

Sale and President Gertrude Tuckwell, becomes the first health

service union to affiliate to the Trades Union Congress (TUC)

1929 The WSIHVA became the Women Public Health Officers’ Association

(WPHOA)

1979Regulatory duties taken up by the

United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC) and the four

National Boards.

1979Under a major reorganisation of

professional regulation, the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors’ Act 1979 resulted in the closure of

CETHV. Although a national campaign ensured that health visiting remained

in statute when the 1979 Act was passed.

1965CETHV developed a curriculum for a

‘new breed of health visitor’based on a 51-week course. At this point, a nursing qualification became a statutory pre-requisite for entry

into health visitor training, along with either registration as a midwife or, at least Part 1 (the hospital component)

of the midwifery training.

1962Council for the Education and

Training of Health Visitors (CETHV) was established as the regulating

authority through the Health Visiting and Social Work (Training) Act 1962.

26th April 1962The WPHOA became the Health

Visitors’ Association (HVA)

April 2002The UKCC ceased to exist with its functions taken up by the Nursing &

Midwifery Council (NMC)

5 July 1948The NHS is launched

2nd-6th June 1868The first TUC Congress

1977CETHV produced the ‘Principles’●  The search for health needs

●  The stimulation of an awareness of health needs

●  The influence on policies affecting health

●  The facilitation of health-enhancing activities

1974Health Visitors, along with other

public health and community nursing staff, are transferred from their local

authority employment into the hospital dominated NHS .

20121900 20001950

Health Visiting: A history

17th-20th October 1962The HV Centenary Conference in Brighton

1956A Health Visitors hat

November 1939‘The Woman Health Office’, or the ‘Official Organ of the WPHOA’. This is the earliest

copy of the journal we’ve found so far.

1970’s‘What is a Health Visitor’ leaflet

1907The ‘Notifications of Birth Act 1907’ marked the beginning of a national service based on home visiting to new-born infants, and the right of local authorities to raise rates to

cover the cost of the health visiting service.

Although not yet mandatory, it states that newborns should be registered and a local medical officer of health

informed of births as soon as possible so that the officer can send

a trained health visitor to the mother’s home. This promoted the

professional and fuelled its rise.

1916The Royal Sanitary Institute (RSI - later the Royal Society for Public

Health) began co-ordinating qualifying courses for health visitors.

1925The Ministry of Health took over

responsibility for the training of health visitors, the RSI continued as the

designated examining body, maintaining a register of those who achieved the

qualification.

1900 1950 2000

2012

1852Manchester and Salford Sanitary

Reform Association established, as a secular society dedicated to

improving health through education:  ‘to give information to the poor and aid to the aged and feeble.’  This was

different to the many 'religious missions' that aimed to promote

health by distributing religious tracts preaching cleanliness and sobriety.

1861Ladies branch of the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Reform Association established.  It was variously known as the “Ladies branch” as above, as the Manchester and Salford Ladies Sanitary Reform Association and,

later, the Ladies Public Health Society.

Annual reports/records were published from 1880 on; historians have gleaned information about the earlier years through a mixture of reports in local newspapers and

women’s journals, where they were widely reported

1867Employment of the first paid health visitors, as reported in their annual

report of 1868:  ‘Whitewash pails and brushes were placed at her disposal to lend and also chloride of lime for

the purification of the air in the rooms of those who were suffering from fever. She had not only given

instruction in common sanitary rules but she would herself wash and make comfortable a sick person whom she

might find neglected or dirty, thus encouraging those who were around

to follow her example by showing people how to do what was needful

in the best way.’

1890The idea of paying home visitors

spread rapidly, and in 1890 six of the 14 health visitors in that area were

transferred from the voluntary sector to local government –

Manchester Public Health Department. 

1905By the end of 1905, paid health

visitors were employed in about 50 towns, which set the scene for the service to be taken up as a state-sponsored provision following the

report of the Committee on Physical Deterioration 1903-04, and the

Notification of Births Acts of 1907 and 1915.

Copyright Unite/CPHVAIf you wish to copy or reproduce part of or the entirety of this document, permission must first be gained from Unite the Union. We wish to thank Prof. Sarah Cowley for her support in producing this timeline.

Dave Munday, Professional Officer, Unite the Union (in the Health Sector)April 2012

1955Polio Vaccination starts in the UK

1877The Sanitary Journal documents the appointment of six women health inspectors in Glasgow, showing the spread of health visiting across the UK. The professional begins to gain ground and move towards national

status.

1904In April, the WSIA becomes a formal

group, with rules and a written constitution. Both women sanitary inspectors and health visitors were included in the organisation, which

promoted sharing knowledge between members. Meetings often included a lecture and discussion, with records

being kept since 1902, before the group’s formalisation. Like today’s

group, the WSIA covered topics like infant mortality and disease prevention

in the home.

1991The Foundation for the Study of

Infant Deaths (FSID) and the HVA launch the ‘Back to Sleep’ Campaign. This saw the numbers of cot deaths reduce from 2,000 to 300 per year.

1891The Factory and Workshop Act gave local authorities powers and duties

to supervise premises where women were employed. Overcrowding, lack

of ventilation and dangerous, dirty or otherwise unsanitary environments were among the problems they had

to contend with.

1904Over 40 towns were now employing

health visitors.

1920’sThe forum became much more than a

discussion group and WSIHVA adopted the role of a pressure group, to influence Government policy and

legislation. The organisation had developed in to a vociferous and well

organised professional body, Trade Union and womans campaigning

organisation.

1910Health Visitors were allowed to join

WSIA as associate members.

1917Full membership rights were granted to all Health Visitors, Superintendents

of Maternity and Child-Welfare Centres and Tuberculosis Visitors.

1921Full membership rights were extended

to suitably qualified School Nurses, Clinic Nurses, Municipal Midwives and

Infant Life Protection Visitors.

1909WSIA represents 96 Women Sanitary

Inspectors and Health Visitors.

1924WSIA represents 437 members.

1931WPHOA represents over 1,000

members.

1940’sBy the Second World War, WPHOA

represents 2,234 members.

1972Men were admitted to the Health

Visiting profession for the first time.

1988Full membership rights of the HVA

were extended to all nurses working in the community.

1996The HVA celebrates its Centenary Year. The celebrations include the

launch of the documentary ‘A History in Health’.

2006-7Scotland (26/03/06) becomes the

first UK Government to enact a ban on smoking in public places. This is

followed by Wales, Northern Ireland and England.

2005Scotland passes the Breastfeeding Act which makes it an offence to prevent or stop a person from breastfeeding.

The 2010 Equality Act brought in similar (extended from the Sexual Discrimination Act) protections in

England.

1975The Sexual Discrimination Act

created legal protection for a woman under the provision of goods,

facilities and services section to breastfeed their child in public.

January 1940The British Ministry of Health circular 1307 proposed the

introduction of mass childhood diphtheria immunisations. By the end of 1942 half of Scottish children and

a third of English children had become fully immunised.