TY - JOUR T1 - Health visiting in primary care in England: a crisis waiting to happen? JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 102 LP - 103 DO - 10.3399/bjgp17X689449 VL - 67 IS - 656 AU - Rosamund Mary Bryar AU - Dame Sarah Ann Cowley AU - Cheryll Mary Adams AU - Sally Kendall AU - Nigel Mathers Y1 - 2017/03/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/67/656/102.abstract N2 - When did you last see a health visitor? When did you last communicate with a health visitor? These seem apt questions given the evidence from a recent survey of health visitors by the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV); (Working with GPs Survey, unpublished, London, 2016. For further information contact Dr C Adams, Director, iHV). The evidence shows great variability in contact between health visitors (HVs) and GPs in England: of 1179 respondents, 23% of HVs saw a GP at least once a week; 33% 1–2 times a month, and 33% less frequently or hardly ever. In this editorial we review the recent history of health visiting and how, in particular in England, we have arrived at the current situation where HVs, once considered essential members of the wider (non-practice employed) primary health care team (PHCT),1 are now so detached that at a recent meeting (ICCHNR Symposium, University of Kent, September, 2016), a GP could say that they, HVs, are ‘out there somewhere’ but where seemed to be a mystery to him and possibly others.Health visiting began in the era of Victorian philanthropy, gradually being formalised, as a public health profession and service, during the twentieth century. It moved into the NHS in 1974, along with district nursing, community midwifery and public health, which had formerly been delivered through local government. HVs began to be attached to general practice at this time, and by 2000 this was the most common form of service organisation. The iHV survey found that in 2016 these arrangements now apply to fewer than half of the HV respondents, with only 28% based in a health centre with GPs and 13% in a GP practice.1 The rest are indeed ‘out there somewhere’ based in children’s centres, other local authority premises, health centres (where there … ER -