Maternal Mental Health Services in England

Ongoing targets for MMHS are needed as the current commitments have not yet delivered the mental health care women and birthing people and their families need.

Given it is not ‘job done’, continued focus from the government and NHS England is required, as well as clear expectations for all local areas of what the MMHS offer should be.

Further resources are required so all MMHS can deliver care across all the required pathways, including equipping every MMHS to provide a pathway for women whose babies have been removed due to safeguarding concerns.

The current variability in care across different parts of the country, means existing levels of funding are not enough. A clear timeframe showing how teams will be supported to deliver care across all pathways is urgently needed.

If we want to see changes in the current trends of negative outcomes for certain groups of women and birthing people, it’s crucial that MMHS are resourced to reach out, become more culturally inclusive and adapt to the unique needs of their diverse local communities. The voices of those with lived experience must be included in service design.

Improving the quality of the data being collected to identify inequalities in prevalence, experience and outcomes in maternal mental health could help ensure services meet the needs of ALL women and birthing people and their families.

The link between better data quality and improvements in care needs to be made clear to staff who face many pressures on their time.

Our data shows variation between MMHS in referral criteria, assessment methods and psychological therapies offered. Quality standards exist for specialist perinatal mental health services where they have helped determine basic levels of care and raise standards.

Having such guidance for MMHS would ensure there are baselines so that all women, babies and families accessing these services receive compassionate and equitable treatment regardless of where they live.

For healthcare professionals to effectively support women in the perinatal period they need to be able to access education, including training on maternal mental health and trauma. MMHS can play an important role in delivering this training, if they are given allocated time to provide this.

In addition, all services working with women and birthing people during pregnancy and after birth must have knowledge of their local MMHS, so that women who need this specialist support can be appropriately referred and women, babies and families can access care as quickly as possible.