Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many of the proposed 375 perinatal mental health visitor champions have been trained.

The Department has already funded the successful training of 573* perinatal mental health champions and this total is likely to increase further. The champions’ training was commissioned from the Institute of Health Visiting. It covers the fundamental requirements necessary for health visitors to manage anxiety, mild to moderate depression and other perinatal mental disorders, including knowing how to assess for the presence of these conditions and if identified, the variety of ways they can support mothers - either by intervening themselves or through referral on to a general practitioner or specialist.

The training model enables participants to become local perinatal mental health champions and to disseminate their skills and knowledge to health visitor and other professional colleagues locally. All health visitors also have access to supportive interactive e-learning modules to help them in the detection and management of perinatal depression and other maternal mental health conditions.

*Source: latest available data from the Institute of Health Visiting