Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report of the National Childbirth Trust, The Hidden Half: Bringing postnatal mental illness out of hiding, published in June 2017 and NICE guidance, Postnatal care up to 8 weeks after birth, last updated in February 2015, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that all new mothers are asked about their mental health by a GP at six to eights weeks postnatally.

This Government is committed to improving perinatal mental health services for women during pregnancy and in the first postnatal year, so that women are able to access the right care at the right time and close to home.

The Department is investing £365 million to 2020/21 in perinatal mental health services, and NHS England is leading a transformation programme with the development of specialist perinatal mental health community services across England with their investment of £63 million between 2016/17 and 2018/19. We want to ensure that more women each year are able to access evidence-based specialist mental health care during the perinatal period. This includes access to psychological therapies and specialist community or inpatient care. The importance of this is reflected in both the NHS England ‘Better Births’ report of the National Maternity Review (2016) and the ‘Five Year Forward View for Mental Health.’

General practitioners (GPs) and primary care teams have a role in supporting the identification of perinatal mental illness and treatment, and are part of an integrated pathway of services.

The Better Births report outlined that better postnatal care was a key requirement for improved maternity services. It recommended that women should have access to their midwife and obstetrician as they require after having had their baby, as well as the need to ensure a smooth transition to on-going care in the community from their GP and health visitor.

Forty-four Local Maternity Systems have come together across sustainability and transformation partnership footprints to lead the transformation of local maternity services, and are developing plans to deliver the vision of Better Births, including the recommendations on better postnatal care. Additional national support will be provided through an Expert Reference Group, convened by NHS England, to identify further opportunities to support improvements to postnatal care.