Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made on the NHS Long Term Plan commitment to provide an additional 24,000 women with access to specialist perinatal mental health support.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to increasing access to evidence-based care for women experiencing moderate, severe and complex mental health issues. This will benefit an additional 24,000 women per year by 2023/24, in addition to the extra 30,000 women getting specialist help by 2020/21.

NHS England continues to expand capacity of inpatient mother and baby units, which support women with serious mental health issues, keeping them together with their babies.

From 2020/21 there will be a requirement for general practitioners to offer a six-eight week maternal postnatal health check for new mothers as an additional appointment to that for the baby. This should include a review of the mother’s mental health and wellbeing, in line with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidance. Five years ago, 40% of the country had no access to specialist perinatal mental health care. Now, there is full geographical coverage for the first time, with specialist community perinatal mental health services in every one of the 44 local National Health Service areas.