Tory pledge on more health visitors

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The £200 million cost of the 50% boost in numbers in England would be paid for by scrapping Government plans for a new cadre of SureStart centre outreach workers, the Conservative leader will tell his party's Spring Forum in Gateshead.

He will accuse ministers of allowing the ranks of health visitors to go into "freefall" over the last three years, with numbers plummeting by 10% to just 9,000 full-time posts.

With 30% eligible for retirement within the next five years, he will warn that the situation will deteriorate further unless action is taken soon.

New parents currently spend an average of just four hours and six minutes with health visitors in their child's first year, he will say.

And he will give a "firm commitment" that, under the Tories, new parents will receive two hours in the weeks before the birth, at least six hours in the baby's first two weeks, one contact a fortnight up to six months and one a month for the rest of the year.

"That's the kind of support that parents want," Mr Cameron is expected to say. "That's what the modern Conservative Party is all about.

"Not laissez-faire: just leaving parents to get on with it. Not nanny-state: some bureaucratic system telling parents what to do. Just sensible, practical, personal support that people trust.

"Taking money from an untried, untested scheme and putting it behind some of the most trusted professionals in Britain."

Mr Cameron will say that he does not have a problem with outreach workers at SureStart centres, but he will insist that health visitors - who must have nursing or midwifery qualifications and often have many years' experience - enjoy greater trust among parents.