Bath and North East Somerset Child and Family Health
Launched in April 2025, the Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) public health nursing contract builds on HCRG Care Group’s long-standing role as system leader in the area. Now with a single point of access, and a digital front door, a newly adopted model is creating accessible, high quality care for families. We’re also changing community health for good through a care leaver reverse mentoring scheme and digital questionnaires that enable us to offer more targeted school nurse support.
Bath and North East Somerset Child and Family Health
When commissioned to run public health nursing in April 2025, HCRG Care Group was already an established system leader in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), running a contract for public health nursing as part of a broader community services co-commissioned with the NHS in 2018. From April 2025, a new model has been directly commissioned and measured separately from the broader community services – and although it’s early in its journey, this new model is already putting down strong foundations by placing upfront investment into key transformations.
Visit Service WebsiteServices include:
- 0-4 Health Visiting Service
- 5-19 (25) School Nursing Service
- Family Nurse Partnership
- Clinic in a Box Service (Sexual Health outreach)
- Specialist Community Public Health Nurse Service for Children not Accessing Formal Education
This service is led by
Val Scrase
Managing Director of BSW
A former health visitor with many years of overseeing strategy, operations and community health in the South West, Val is now leading some of the most ambitious transformations of health services in the UK.
A key transformation is our single point of access
For requesting support and receiving advice, this is supported by a digital front door, Growing Well B&NES, which offers digital resources, such as bespoke videos and advice articles. It also offers direct messaging with health visitors and school nurses, who respond to service users within two hours. This all helps to make community health services as accessible as possible while reducing unnecessary visits.
Services are integrated, with a multidisciplinary team
Offering seamless 0-19 support, rather than services that are fractured into age categories, while ensuring appropriately skilled individuals are providing the right support at the right time, in line with our Quality Promise. We’re also integrating co-designed pathways with early-help and third sector support to free up capacity and improve the quality of referrals.
There is continuity to this integrated support
Every family with a 0–4-year-old has a named health visitor, and every secondary school has a named school nurse, so everyone has consistent points of contact. And our record systems enable the seamless sharing of information to keep support coordinated. When a child, young person or family needs to see multiple contacts in different domains, they’ll still only need to tell their story once.
We’re getting much clearer oversight of children and young people’s needs
Through digital health development questionnaires, which are being rolled out across schools and for home-educated children. Covering key transition points (school entry, Years 7, 9, 11 and 13), these tools provide detailed insights into a large population – and provide automated digital advice and signposting based on the answers. If urgent support is needed, a school nurse can follow up within 24 hours, and they can offer other targeted support as required.
This low-cost, high-impact approach is already giving us a great opportunity to support resilience, wellbeing, and improve health behaviours for the sake of prevention.
We’re building on B&NEs’ innovative approaches to outreach
Like its dedicated Children Missing Education role. Following a successful launch in Wiltshire, we’ve introduced Equality and Engagement Leads B&NEs, and they’re beginning to address underserved communities. Likewise, Young Engagement Facilitators are now ensuring that young people play a direct role in shaping services.
We are also signing up to the Care Leavers Covenant and launching a reverse mentoring scheme, where senior leaders will be mentored by care leavers so lived experience informs service design and we can change community health for good.
Looking ahead
We’ll be further supporting children, young people and families to take an active role in their health and well-being through self-help resources, and a partnership approach to care, backed up by our routine reviews and support.
Visit Service WebsiteWhat’s happening at a glance
Single point of access with digital front door (Growing Well B&NES).
Named health visitors and school nurses for consistent family support.
Digital health development questionnaires at key school transitions.
Equality and Engagement Leads and Young Engagement Facilitators widening reach.
Care leaver covenant and reverse mentoring scheme shaping leadership decisions.
Record sharing system to create continuity of care with primary care and partners.