Again, the hon. Gentleman makes a good point, which was on page 5 of my notes. This issue affects everybody across society, often better-off, more affluent families who might be better at hiding it or less inclined to come forward to seek help. The charity that I chair has units in Liverpool, Newcastle, London and so on, and we see that middle-class parents who have serious attachment dysfunction problems with their children are less likely to come forward. Those, ironically, may be harder-to-reach people. Health visitors are the early warning system and are able to signpost some of those people to services. They can also point out, “I think you have a problem,” and it will be taken on trust.
I appreciate the good points that have been made, but I will make some progress. The cost of failing to intervene early is enormous—financially and, more importantly, socially. The impact of not intervening early can disadvantage a child through early years, school years, adolescence and often into adulthood. In some cases, it can be life-defining.
One of the great achievements of the coalition Government was to pledge a massive increase in health visitors. In opposition, the then shadow Health Minister, Andrew Lansley, championed the recruitment of no fewer than 4,300 new health visitors, based on the successful model of the Dutch Kraamzorg system—I was involved in research into that—where post-natal care is provided to a new mother and her baby an initial eight to 10 days immediately after birth.
Four years ago, the Government’s health visitor implementation plan and the “Call to action” scheme were the pride of the nation. The policy was built on sound evidence that the health visiting profession had the power to drive health improvements and provide a universal service designed to give every child that best possible start in life, as we all want to see. Impressively, for a Government target, it was achieved—just about—in the lifetime of the 2010 to 2015 Parliament.