Limits should be introduced on the "unmanageable" caseloads of health visitors in England, with some now responsible for more than 1,000 families each, the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) has said.
The number of health visitors - qualified nurses or midwives who support families with very young children - has almost halved in the last decade.
In January, the Health and Social Care Committee said the government would fail in its ambition to give every child the best start in life, unless it took urgent action to rebuild the workforce.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) says the government is "committed to strengthening health visiting services".
Emma Dolan, a health visitor with Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust in Hull, says her "top priorities" are to spot potential issues early, and offer advice to parents on things like their baby's wellbeing and sleep to prevent problems arising later.
"We want our babies to live long and happy lives [by] giving that support nice and early and making sure that families know what services are out there."
However, BBC analysis has shown the number of health visitors in England has fallen from 10,200 a decade ago, to 5,575 in January - a drop of 45%.
iHV chief Alison Morton says families are paying the price for the decline in the workforce.
"We need to set a benchmark, otherwise we're just going to continue to see this decline with hugely unmanageable, unsafe caseloads which are impossible for health visitors to work within," she says.
"Health visitors are having to prioritise, and actually prioritisation has a human cost.
"They're having to tell families: 'I'm sorry, I can't do that extra follow-up visit', when you know it would have made a massive difference to that family."
Even if England did bring in safe staffing limits, according to Morton, there aren't enough health visitors currently employed to provide that level of coverage.
"We need more health visitors so that we can have manageable caseloads," she says.
Source: BBC News, 20 April 2026
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