Sally Kendall

• B.Sc. (Hons) PhD London, FQNI
• Professor at University of Kent

Health visiting is a complex public health intervention in which specialist nurses work with families to support the healthy development of children up to five years of age. Using routinely collected administrative health data, we emulated a target trial to estimate the effect of enhanced health visiting services on potentially avoidable hospital a...

Background Receiving a diagnosis of congenital anomalies in the first 1000 days of life can have significant implications for a family’s emotional and mental wellbeing. We refer to this as different news. We evaluated a communications skills training to improve how healthcare professionals deliver different news using a train-the-trainer (Champions...

Aim:To report on the design and results of an innovative nurse practitioner (NP)-led specialist primary care service for children facing housing instability. Background:During 2017–2018, children aged 0–14 years represented 23% of the total population receiving support from specialist homeless services in Australia. The impact of housing instabilit...

Embedding nurse practitioners into specialist homeless services can help to improve healthcare access for vulnerable children, a unique pilot program has shown.

Health visiting in England is a universal service that aims to promote the healthy development of children aged under five years and safeguard their welfare. We consulted stakeholders about their priorities for research into health visiting and also used these consultations and a literature review to generate a logic model. Parents wanted research...

Objective Every child in England should be offered a health and development review at age 2–2½ years by the health visiting service, part of which includes an assessment of child development. The Department of Health and Social Care mandates the use of the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ-3) at this review as a tool to collect population-level da...

In 2013, Kenya implemented free maternity services, later expanded in 2016 into the ‘Linda Mama’ policy to provide essential health services for pregnant women. This study explored the policy formulation background, processes, content, and actors’ roles in formulation and implementation. Using a convergent parallel mixed-methods case study design,...

Background The health visiting service in UK promotes the health and wellbeing of families with young children and comprises a universal offer (three mandated contacts between birth and 12 months) and additional contacts based on need. We aimed to understand how the level of health visiting support received varies by family characteristics. Method...

Background Child health programmes in the United Kingdom offer every child and their family an evidence-based programme to support child health and development. During the COVID-19 pandemic, health visiting services in many areas were reduced to a partial service, with significant variability between and within the four United Kingdom countries. Th...

Background Health visiting teams in the UK deliver a universal service for children aged 0 to 5 and their families, enabling early intervention and support. Their services are organised, delivered and experienced differently across the UK, with little evidence to suggest what works best, for whom, in what contexts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, man...

INTRODUCTION Postpartum depression negatively impacts maternal mental health and child development. The high prevalence of postpartum depression (PPD) in low and lower middle-income countries raises questions about its predictors. This study examines the association between PPD and breastfeeding experience, child death, unresolved pregnancy, forced...

Background Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience intergenerational trauma as a legacy of the impacts of colonisation. Replanting the Birthing Trees (RBT) aims to transform compounding cycles of intergenerational trauma and harm to positively reinforcing cycles of intergenerational nurturing and recovery for Aboriginal and Torres S...

Background The health visiting service in England leads the government's Healthy Child Programme (HCP) for children under five years. Local authorities and their provider partners deliver this service differently across England. Objective To describe local authority variation in the delivery of health visiting to children under five years in Englan...

Background Kenya still faces the challenge of mothers and neonates dying from preventable pregnancy-related complications. The free maternity policy (FMP), implemented in 2013 and expanded in 2017 (Linda Mama Policy (LMP)), sought to address this challenge. This study examines the quality of care (QoC) across the continuum of maternal care under th...

Background/objectives The Family Nurse Partnership is an intensive home visiting programme for adolescent mothers. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Family Nurse Partnership on outcomes up to age 7 using national administrative data. Design We created a linked cohort of all mothers aged 13–19 using data from health, educational and chi...

Background We evaluated the effectiveness of the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP), an intensive home visiting programme aiming to improve birth outcomes, child health and development, and to promote economic self-sufficiency among teenage mothers. Methods We created a linked cohort of >130 000 mothers aged 13–19 years with live births between April...

Introduction The health visiting service in England leads the delivery of the government’s Healthy Child Programme (HCP) for children under five. However, local authorities and their provider partners deliver this service differently in respond to the challenges of funding cuts, low numbers of health visitors and high levels of family needs. Objec...

Kenya is one of the many African countries committed to advancing its health system reforms by providing affordable and equitable access to essential health services. In 2016, the Government of Kenya unveiled an expanded free maternity care policy called ‘Linda Mama’ to provide essential health services for pregnant women. We explored the agenda se...

Background: In 2017, Kenya launched the free maternity policy (FMP) that aimed to provide all pregnant women access to maternal services in private, faith-based, and levels 3-6 public institutions. We explored the adaptive strategies health care workers (HCWs) and county officials used to bridge the implementation challenges and achieve the FMP ob...

Introduction“Big data” – including linked administrative data – can be exploited to evaluate interventions for maternal and child health, providing time- and cost-effective alternatives to randomised controlled trials. However, using these data to evaluate population-level interventions can be challenging. Objectives We aimed to inform future evalu...

Introduction Health visiting is a long-established, nationally implemented programme that works with other services at a local level to improve the health and well-being of children and families. To maximise the impact and efficiency of the health visiting programme, policy-makers and commissioners need robust evidence on the costs and benefits of...

Purpose: To research involvement of healthcare staff in the UK and identify practical organisational and policy solutions to improve and boost capacity of the existing workforce to conduct research. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-method study presenting three work packages here: secondary analysis of levels of staff research activity, fund...

Introduction Health visiting services, providing support to under 5s and their families, are organised and delivered in very different ways in different parts of the UK. While there has been attention to the key components of health visiting practice and what works well and how, there is little research on how health visiting services are organised...

This paper evaluates the overall effect of the Kenyan free maternity policy (FMP) on the main outcomes (early neonatal and neonatal deaths) and intermediate outcomes (delivery through Caesarean Section (CS), skilled birth attendance (SBA), birth in a public hospital and low birth weight (LBW)) using the 2014 Demographic Health Survey. We applied th...

Background : This study seeks to determine the extent of women's out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for delivery under the free maternity policy (FMP). Methods : We conducted a convergent parallel mixed-methods study using quantitative and qualitative data collection. The study was set in three facilities (levels 3, 4, and 5) in Kiambu County, Kenya. The...

Media can be a powerful communication tool to promote breastfeeding, influence mothers' breastfeeding behaviour, create positive social norms and generate support among stakeholders and policymakers for breastfeeding. However, negative stories could deter women from starting or continuing to breastfeed. This study aimed to describe the breadth and...

Abstract Breastfeeding is the most accessible and cost‐effective activity available to public health and has been shown to be one of the most effective preventive measures mothers can take to protect their children's health. Despite the well‐documented benefits, the UK has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. The Becoming Breastfeedi...

Background The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is an early intervention aiming to support adolescent mothers and their children. The FNP has been evaluated in England and Scotland in two separate studies using linked administrative data from health, education, and social care. We aimed to make recommendations for studies using linked administrative...

Background The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is an early home visiting service supporting young mothers. A randomised controlled trial of FNP in England found no effect on short-term primary outcomes or maltreatment in children up to age 7 years, but positive impacts on some educational outcomes. We report preliminary results of a national evaluat...

Background Intensive home visiting for adolescent mothers may help reduce health disparities. Given limited resources, such interventions need to be effectively targeted. We evaluated which mothers were enrolled in the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP), an intensive home-visiting service for first-time young mothers commissioned in >130 local authorit...

Introduction Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is associated with poorer health outcomes throughout life. In England, health visiting is a long-standing, nationally implemented service that aims to prevent and mitigate the impact of adversity in early childhood, including for children exposed to ACEs. A range of health visiting servi...

Objectives The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is an early home visiting service supporting young mothers. A randomised controlled trial of FNP in England found no effect on short-term primary outcomes or maltreatment up to age seven, but positive impacts on educational outcomes by age 7. We report preliminary results of an evaluation of FNP using l...

Aims In the UK the number of children living in temporary accommodation has risen by 80% since COVID-19 [1]. One fifth of Australian children aged 0 to 5 years lived in homelessness/housing instability prior to COVID-19 [2,3]. Little is known regarding the impact of homelessness on the health of children living with homeless families. Moreover, the...

Abstract The Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly (BBF) in Great Britain study was conducted during 2017–2019 comprising three country studies: BBF England, Wales and Scotland. It was part of an international project being coordinated during the same period by the Yale School of Public Health across five world regions to inform countries and guide polic...

Background Parent self‐efficacy (PSE), parents' confidence in their ability to successfully raise their children, has proved to be a powerful direct predictor of specific positive parenting practices. The aim of this study was to validate the Italian version of the Tool to Measure Parenting Self‐Efficacy (TOPSE) using data from the questionnaires p...

Evidence-based policy toolboxes are essential for decision makers to effectively invest in and scale up maternal-child health and nutrition programs, and breastfeeding is no exception. This special issue focuses on the experiences implementing the Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly (BBF) toolbox in England, Scotland, and Wales. BBF is an initiative th...

Objective The 2–2½ year universal health visiting review in England is a key time point for assessing child development and promoting school readiness. We aimed to ascertain which children were least likely to receive their 2–2½ year review and whether there were additional non-mandated contacts for children who missed this review. Design, setting...

In 2019–2020 we conducted a pilot study of a Nurse Practitioner clinic working with housing insecure children (0–18 years) that found high levels of developmental delay, missed immunizations and dental caries. This present non‐randomized, concurrent mixed‐methods study protocol explains the next phase of the research designed proving proof of conce...

Despite strong policy support in Scotland, United Kingdom, key challenges to scaling up promotion, protection and support for breastfeeding remain. These include low breastfeeding rates and socioeconomic and regional inequalities. The Becoming Breastfeeding-Friendly (BBF) process was implemented to highlight actions that could address these challen...

BACKGROUND Internationally, there is an increasing emphasis on early intervention in the first 1000 days to support pregnant mothers and optimise the health and development of newborns. To increase intervention reach, digital and app-based interventions have been advocated. This paper reports on the qualitative arm of the independent multicomponent...

Background Internationally, there is increasing emphasis on early support for pregnant women to optimize the health and development of mothers and newborns. To increase intervention reach, digital and app-based interventions have been advocated. There are growing numbers of pregnancy health care apps with great variation in style, function, and obj...

Aim We conducted an integrative review of the global-free maternity (FM) policies and evaluated the quality of care (QoC) and cost and cost implications to provide lessons for universal health coverage (UHC). Methodology Using integrative review methods proposed by Whittemore and Knafl (2005), we searched through EBSCO Host, ArticleFirst, Cochrane...

Portraying the authentic voice of people who inject drugs (PWID) through narrative means is a novelty in contemporary literature. The study explored the experiences of PWID living with chronic leg ulceration using qualitative methodology set in a naturalistic paradigm. Led from the perspective of a nurse-researcher in the field of wound management,...

Aim This paper documents the impact of a Nurse Practitioner-led primary health service for disadvantaged children living in housing instability or homelessness. It identifies that First Nations children miss out on essential primary care, particularly immunisation, but have less severe health conditions than non-First Nations children living in hou...

This editorial describes how research in primary health care can be used to influence policy. It draws on previous literature to give an example from the UK of how research in one part of primary care, the health-visiting service, has endeavoured to use evidence to influence policy and practice. The editorial considers frameworks for policy impleme...

Introduction Self-regulation is a modifiable protective factor for lifespan mental and physical health outcomes. Early caregiver-mediated interventions to promote infant and child regulatory outcomes prevent long-term developmental, emotional and behavioural difficulties and improve outcomes such as school readiness, educational achievement and eco...

Aim To explore the lived experience of delivering or receiving news about an unborn or newborn child having a condition associated with a learning disability in order to inform the development of a training intervention for healthcare professionals. We refer to this news as different news. Background How healthcare professionals deliver different...

Background The Birthing on Noongar Boodjar project (NHMRC Partnership Project #GNT1076873) investigated Australian Aboriginal women and midwives’ views of culturally safe care during childbearing. This paper reports on midwifery knowledge of Aboriginal women's cultural needs, their perceptions of health systems issues, and their ability to provide...

There is a need for a paradigm shift across mental health in primary care to improve the lives of millions of Europeans. To contribute to this paradigm shift, the European Forum for Primary Care (EFPC-MH) working group for Mental Health, produced a Position Paper for Primary Care Mental Health outlining 14 themes that needed prioritizing. These the...

The Department of Health, Act ion Plan for Children and Young People states 22% of all Australian children live in housing instability (Australian Government 2019). Australian research states one in six children or 1.1million children live in disadvantage or are marginalised (Davidson et al.2018; Long et al. 2018; Sandstrom & Heurta 2013). Margina...

The Department of Health, Action Plan for Children and Young People states 22% of all children in Australia aged 0-14 years live in housing instability. Exposure to housing instability in childhood is significantly linked to long term ill-health, lower academic achievement, increased poor health physically and mentally, and increased risk of adult...

Background and Objectives Self-regulation is a modifiable protective factor for lifespan mental and physical health outcomes. Early caregiver-mediated interventions to promote infant and child regulatory outcomes prevent long-term developmental, emotional, and behavioural difficulties and improve outcomes such as school readiness, educational achie...

Background: Anticipatory guidance for parents is commonly used to improve parenting skills. The objective of this pre/post-intervention controlled study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a periodic newsletter with advice on childcare and development in improving parenting self-efficacy. Methods: This was a non-randomized pre/post-intervention...

Background In the United Kingdom, pregnant women are offered foetal anomaly screening to assess the chance of their baby being born with eleven different conditions. How health care professionals (HCPs) deliver news about a child having a congenital anomaly affects how it is received and processed by parents. We refer to this news as different news...

Purpose To describe the lived experience of receiving or delivering news about an unborn or new born child having a condition associated with a learning disability. Theory In the UK, pregnant women are offered screening to assess the chance of their baby being born with conditions such as Down Syndrome. The way HCPs deliver this news is an import...

Background: Health mobile applications (apps) have become very popular, including apps specifically designed to support women during the ante- and post-natal periods. However, there is currently limited evidence for the effectiveness of such apps at improving pregnancy and parenting outcomes. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of a pregna...

Background Culturally secure care is considered foundational for good perinatal outcomes for Indigenous women. It is unknown what literature reports on whether Indigenous women giving birth in urban areas receives appropriate cultural care. The aim of this scoping review was to examine and summarise relevant evidence which reports on culturally sec...

This is the weighted scoring of the Epilepsy Risk Assessment scale, to quantify individual risk related to epilepsy

Aim The principal aim of this study was to develop, pilot and evaluate an intervention intended to support the development of resilience and self-efficacy in parents of children with disabilities or complex health needs. Background Previous research has found that families often experience physical, social and emotional stress in the context of li...

Background: Perinatal mental health (PMH) problems are a major public health concern because they may impair parenting ability which potentially has an immediate and long-term impact on the physical, cognitive and emotional health of the child. Aims: We evaluated a Perinatal Support Service (PSS) which supports positive attachment between mothers w...

Background The Healthy Child Programme is the universal public health system in England to assess and monitor child health from 0 to 19. Following a review of measures for closer monitoring at age 2 years, the Department of Health for England implemented the Ages & Stages Questionnaires®, Third Edition (ASQ‐3™; Hereon, ASQ‐3). Aim The aim of this...

Celebrating the first 20 years of publication of Primary Health Care Research & Development! - Volume 20 - Sally Kendall, Ros Bryar, Katie Henderson

Abstract Background Information and communication technologies are used increasingly to facilitate social networks and support women during the perinatal period. This paper presents data on how technology use affects the association between women’s social support and, (i) mental wellbeing and, (ii) self-efficacy in the antenatal period. Methods Dat...

Introduction Developments in information and communication technologies have enabled electronic health and seen a huge expansion over the last decade. This has increased the possibility of self-management of health issues. Purpose To assess the effectiveness of the Baby Buddy app on maternal self-efficacy and mental well-being three months post-bi...

Integrating primary and community care: an international perspective - Volume 19 Issue 4 - Sally Kendall

Objectives To explore how embedded patient and public involvement is within mainstream health research following two decades of policy-driven work to underpin health research with patient and public involvement in England. Methods Realist evaluation using Normalization Process Theory as a programme theory to understand what enabled patient and pub...

This paper reports the findings of a scoping review on the organisation and delivery of health improvement activities in general practice and the primary healthcare team. The project was designed to examine who delivers these interventions, where they are located, what approaches are developed in practices and how individual practices and the prima...

Aim This study aimed to explore, describe and enhance understanding of women’s experiences, beliefs and knowledge of urinary symptoms in the postpartum period and also sought to understand the perceptions of health professionals of these issues. Background Women often take no action with regard to urinary symptoms particularly in the postnatal per...

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 show...

Purpose: Quality of life in people with epilepsy depends on balancing protection from risks and avoiding unnecessary restrictions. The Epilepsy Risk Awareness Checklist (ERAC) was developed to summarise an individual's safety, health care and quality of life and to facilitate communication between professionals. Although effective, the existing Ch...

Plain English summary Patient and public involvement (PPI) in research is very important, and funders and the NHS all expect this to happen. What this means in practice, and how to make it really successful, is therefore an important research question. This article analyses the experience of a research team using PPI, and makes recommendations on s...

Background: The Baby Buddy phone app was developed by Best Beginnings to support young mothers through pregnancy and the first six months’ post birth in their physical, emotional and social transition to parenthood. The physical and mental health messages and motivators for behavioural change within the apps have been designed to reinforce messages...

The Department of Health (DH) advocates communities of practice (CoPs) as a key vehicle for delivering service transformation (DH, 2011). In 2012, a health visitors' online community of practice (Kendall and Ikioda, 2014) extended the concept through a web-supported platform. A recent development involved a closed Facebook group to bring a group of...

Aims: This paper was a report of the synthesis of evidence on examining the origins and definitions of the concept of resilience, investigating its application in chronic illness management and exploring its utility as a means of understanding family caregiving of adults with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Background: Resilience is a con...

Primary Health Care Research & Development: Official Journal of the European Forum for Primary Care - Volume 17 Issue 3 - Peter Groenewegen, Jan De Maeseneer, Sally Kendall

At the heart of health visiting practice has been the emphasis on ensuring that healthcare services transferred to and commissioned by local authorities, deliver successfully on the Healthy Child programme. And while part of that focus has been on increasing numbers in the health visiting workforce, there has also been a renewed strategy in health...

Bringing Europe together through primary care - Volume 17 Issue 1 - Sally Kendall, Rosamund Bryar

Background Patient and public involvement (PPI) is a prerequisite for many funding bodies and NHS research ethics approval. PPI in research is defined as research carried out with or by the public rather than to, about or for them. While the benefits of PPI have been widely discussed, there is a lack of evidence on the impact and outcomes of PPI in...

Increase in frequency of publication: a new era for PHCR&D - Volume 16 Issue 1 - Rosamund Bryar, Sally Kendall

This project examines the organisation and delivery of health improvement activities by and within general practice and the primary health-care team. The project was designed to examine who delivers these interventions, where they are located, what approaches are developed in practices, how individual practices and the primary health-care team orga...

Aim To describe the role of school nursing in leading and coordinating a multidisciplinary networked system of support for children with asthma, and to analyze the strengths and challenges of undertaking and supporting multiagency interprofessional practice. Background The growth of networked and interprofessional collaborations arises from the re...

Geraldine Byrne, Principal lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire's school of health and social work, has died after a short illness.

Aim: To provide a template for developing a national mentoring scheme to enhance the contribution practitioner researchers can make to the quality of health care in England. Background: The authors describe the background to and organisation of a mentorship scheme to support those awarded National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) fellowships...

Background Some 15 million people in England have a long-term condition (LTC) but there is concern about whether or not the NHS meets their needs. To address this, consecutive governments have developed policies aimed at improving service delivery and patient and public engagement and involvement (PPEI). There has been little research that examines...

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND: In the policy statement ‘Supporting Families in the Foundation Years’, the Government set out its intention to commit to improving outcomes for young children and families through increased focus on preventive and early intervention services in pregnancy and the early years. Here, the intentions are laid out to develop...

The Burdett Trust for Nursing funded a 2-year project to pilot an online community of practice to enable health visitors to share, manage and co-produce knowledge in a virtual space. The aim of the project was to develop a robust web-based tool to allow practitioners to share expertise and promote learning to empower them to exchange professional k...

Primary Health Care Research and Development: time to review and reflect - Volume 15 Issue 1 - Sally Kendall, Ros Bryar

Venous leg ulceration has a high recurrence rate. Patients with healed or frequently recurring venous ulceration are required to perform self-care behaviours to prevent recurrence or promote healing, but evidence suggests that many find these difficult to perform. Bandura's self-efficacy theory is a widely used and robust behaviour change model and...

Early child development and the impact of parenting on later life are of global concern. The rise in child abuse and maltreatment in Japan suggests that measures to increase self-efficacy and reduce stress would benefit Japanese parents. In this study, we explored if Japanese parents attending a 123Magic parenting program reported reduced stress an...