The original 10 Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) test sites are currently being evaluated by Birkbeck college, university of London. The second year report of the evaluation suggests that the programme is being delivered well; that it is successful in engaging the most vulnerable clients, who value it highly; and that it is also successful in engaging fathers. The evaluation also points to early signs that clients cope better with pregnancy, labour and parenthood, have aspirations for the future and that FNP is having a positive effect on reducing smoking during pregnancy and increasing rates of breastfeeding.
The learning from the evaluation and from other learning and development projects in these 10 sites has been invaluable and is being used more widely as we expand and develop FNP in this country. Approximately 4,000 families have benefited from FNP to date, and we are currently working with over 50 sites.
Clients in the original 10 sites are reaching the end of the FNP programme. Expansion in these sites is a decision for local commissioners, but nine sites have started to recruit a new cohort of clients and have expanded their teams. Eight of these sites are also now participating in a randomised controlled trial of FNP, along with 10 newer test sites, which will report in 2013.