Controversial questions (part two): should there be a direct-entry route to health visitor education?

This is the second paper in a series of three, drawing on the experience of providing evidence to the Health Select Committee's 2008 inquiry into health inequalities. Material submitted has been adapted and expanded according to three common and often controversial questions. One member of the committee enquired about the relevance of education and training to recruitment issues in health visiting, asking why it is necessary to be a nurse and what would be the barriers to changing this arrangement, which has been in force since the 1960s.This paper summarises some of the longstanding discussions about this issue, which has rarely been off the agenda, and proposes that, since health visiting is no longer in statute, the time has come to take a radical approach and to change current arrangements.