A quarter of children aged two are missing out on vital wellbeing checks due to a shortage of more than 5,000 health visitors.
The crisis is threatening the life chances of hundreds of tots through delays in diagnosing developmental conditions such as autism, deafness and cerebral palsy.
Since October 2015, the number of health visitors in England has been slashed by 40%, from 10,309 to 5,842.
Research shows one in 10 are juggling caseloads of more than 1,000 kids – four times the recommended ratio – and nearly a third have more than 750 children on their books. As trained nurses, health visitors are meant to conduct five mandatory checks before a child reaches the age of two-and-a-half.
But the shortages mean many checks are delegated to non-qualified staff – or not done at all.
One in five health visitors have turned to mental health services for work stress, an Institute of Health Visiting poll found.
Nearly half plan to quit in the next five years.
Many say they can no longer do the job they trained for – and feel they have become de facto social workers. One struggling health visitor said: “We are drowning. We are missing maternal mental health issues, domestic abuse, delayed development etc. We are failing a generation.”
IHV boss Alison Morton warned: “Ignoring this tsunami of unmet need risks undermining the life chances of so many children.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We are modernising the Healthy Child programme and investing £300million to create new family hubs in 75 local authorities to ensure parents and carers can access the support to give children a healthy start in life.”
Labour has vowed to abolish non-dom tax breaks to cover the cost of training 5,000 more health visitors.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “Every child deserves a healthy start to life.”
