NHS England to Become World Leader in Perinatal Mental Health

The perinatal period, which begins at 22 weeks of gestation and ends after the first year following birth, has long been known by maternal and mental health specialists as a crucial phase in determining the postnatal emotional and psychological well-being of mothers and their new children.

However, despite the consensus that holds among these very knowledgeable frontline professionals, for too long there has been inadequate investment of both money and political capital in perinatal issues such as postnatal depression that ultimately affect us all intimately – whether as mothers, as partners of mothers, as new children or of close or extended family. It is no hyperbole to say that this is an issue that affects the very roots of society.

This is why it is so refreshing to learn that as of April 2019, the NHS will make perinatal mental health services available to every expectant and new mother in England, finally filling a gap that for far too long has had a profound and chasm-like effect on those who have been in need.

It is reported that NHS England will spend £23 million on the rollout phase of community-based prenatal and postnatal support to those parts of the country that are designated as being under-resourced. In effect, this should mean that every area of the country is covered, which, when it is considered that four years ago only 3% of the country was covered, should be viewed as nothing short of miraculous.

It should also mean that it ends so-called postcode lotteries whereby women in certain select parts of the country received perinatal mental health care while those in others received none at all.

It also represents another step in the journey towards de-stigmatising perinatal mental health problems. In her expert article for My BabyManual, Dr Sylvia Garry writes that around 1 in 5 women are affected by mental health difficulties within the first year of the baby’s life – most commonly postnatal anxiety or postnatal depression – so it is in many ways astonishing that it has taken so long for society to react. Left untreated, these illnesses can have a devastating and lasting impact on not only the women themselves but also their babies and families. The news from NHS England means that as a society we can have greater confidence that these illnesses will be recognised, diagnosed and treated.

The injection of cash and services follows on from a £40 million investment by NHS England in 2016, money that was spent on boosting psychologist, psychiatrist and nurse numbers for mothers and their families. This is thought to have already helped around 7,000 families in England.

Professor Wendy Burn, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, was also delighted with the new funding, saying that her organisation has worked closely with NHS England and Health Education England to “help deliver the much-needed perinatal psychiatric workforce of the future”.

She added that all psychiatrists who completed the Royal College’s perinatal bursary scheme will have perinatal consultant psychiatric jobs in their local areas. “This, together with the new wave of targeted funding, will help ensure that new and expectant mums will be able to access specialist perinatal community services in every part of England by April 2019,” Burn said.

It is estimated that the investment in perinatal mental health services could result in around 30,000 additional women receiving treatment, so the consequences of the move are likely to be profoundly positive. We may not have yet reached rollout but it is hard to see the government spending a better £23 million any time soon.

Dr Alain Gregoire, who chairs the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, praised the move saying that in more than three decades he had not seen the NHS initiate such “life-saving… rapid, effective and widespread” change. He also said it would make the “world leader” in perinatal mental health services.