Milestones

2025/26 [End of March 2026]

Over 15,600 families have benefitted from FNP to date.

On average 81% of mothers offered the programme are taking it up. 

Over 10,400 mothers have graduated from the programme.

The majority of young parents (85%) remain on the programme until their child reaches two.  

In 2010 we committed to implementing the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) in Scotland as one of the most well evidenced programmes to deliver lasting change in populations at most risk of poor outcomes. This was in part of our response to the recognition of the growing importance of supporting the earliest years of a child’s life, including at pre-birth, to have life-long impacts. It was seen as part of a preventive approach to support parents as early as possible in their parenting journey. This holistic, relational programme aims to support the role of the family and the wider environment in shaping the child’s life, to respond to increasing inequalities and to break intergenerational cycles of poor outcomes.

The programme is person-centred, aligned to Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), children's rights and has a core aim around tackling child poverty. Many of the first-time young mothers (around 98%) who enter this licensed, evidence based programme may have experienced some form of trauma or adverse experience in their lives before enrolling.

FNP is delivered in the clients own home by 181 WTE family nurses and 30 WTE supervisors, who have completed more than 500,000 visits. Family nurses are experienced, qualified nurses and midwives, who undergo additional training at masters level. This enables family nurses to support FNP clients to build the confidence and skills they need to provide the right support for their baby and give them the best start in life.

FNP Scotland was the first in the world to develop an academic award for family nurse education. The first group of family nurses from Scotland and Northern Ireland have graduated with the Professional Diploma in Family Nursing in June 2024.  

The most prevalent complexities for FNP clients at enrolment are:

• anxiety or other mental health issues (63%)
• experience of parental separation (63%)
• low income (60%)
• not being in work, education or training (57%)

Just over 70% of those who take up the programme are from the most deprived SIMD quintiles (SIMD 1 & 2).

Over a fifth (22%) of FNP mothers were care experienced or on the child protection register as a child. 

The FNP programme aims to address families’ immediate health and wellbeing needs and build pathways into community supports and resources to address social and economic factors, such as welfare, education, employment and money advice.

Our aspiration is to be able to offer a place in FNP to every eligible first-time mother in Scotland. In 2022, as part of the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, Best Start Bright Futures, we committed to extending the eligibility of FNP to care experienced first-time mothers up to age 25, and all first-time mothers aged 21 and under, where capacity allows.

FNP has been carefully scaled up with quality since its introduction in 2010 and Scotland became the first country in the word to deliver FNP at scale in 2018.

The programme can reach up to 4,000 families at any one time and is delivered in 11 mainland health boards as follows: 

The map below shows our client demographic in Scotland:

This graph shows the ethnicity of FNP clients:  

This diagram shows FNP clients first language: