Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve (a) early diagnosis and (b) intervention for mothers experiencing postnatal depression.

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 from 2015/16 to 2020/21 in perinatal mental health services, and NHS England is leading a transformation programme to ensure that by 2020/21 at least 30,000 more women each year are able to access evidence-based specialist mental health care during the perinatal period.

General practitioners and primary care teams have a crucial role in supporting the identification and treatment of perinatal mental illness, including post-natal depression, and are part of an integrated pathway of services.