To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how the £30 million allocated to the future expansion of the Family Nurse Partnership under the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 will be allocated to each area; whether the evaluation of the Family Nurse Partnership pilots has been completed; in which areas the pilots are being held; and to which other areas he plans to extend the pilot scheme. (269532)

I have been asked to reply.

The £30 million allocated to the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) under the comprehensive spending review 2007 will contribute to local costs in up to 70 primary care trust and local authority test sites. It also supports extensive evaluation, the provision of family nurse training, licensed programme materials and implementation advice and guidance. In addition, it is funding a number of development projects to support adaptation of the programme to the English context.

The FNP is currently being tested in 30 areas and a further 20 test sites will start operation in 2009-10, bringing the total to 50¹. The Child Health Strategy “Healthy lives, brighter futures”, published on 12 February 2009, set out plans for further expansion of the FNP, to 70 test sites by 2011, with a view to rolling out this support to the most vulnerable first time young mothers across England over the next decade, if research findings are positive. A copy of the strategy has already been placed in the Library.

An evaluation of the first 10 test sites is being conducted by the university of London, Birkbeck. A first year report was published in July 2008, with promising early findings. A copy has been placed in the Library. We hope to publish a report of the second year by this summer. In addition, a randomised controlled trial is starting this month in 18 sites, to test the impact of FNP compared with usual services.

¹ 10 FNP sites started delivery in 2007-08: Barnsley, Derby City, County Durham and Darlington, Manchester, Berkshire East, Southwark, South East Sussex, Somerset, Tower Hamlets, Walsall. 20 sites started in 2008-09: Blackpool, Calderdale, Hastings and Rother, Islington, Milton Keynes, Nottingham City, Plymouth, Southampton, Stockport, Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham South, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly, Coventry, Cumbria, Hull, Lambeth, Leeds, Liverpool, Northamptonshire and Sunderland.

20 further sites will start operation in 2009-10: Doncaster, Ealing, Kirklees, Medway, Sandwell, Sheffield, Swindon, Telford and Wrekin, Birmingham East and North, Bradford and Airedale, Cambridgeshire, Gateshead Tyne and Wear, Knowsley, Lewisham, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Wirral, Dudley, Waltham Forest and Hammersmith and Fulham.