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<p>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.</p><p>A key aim of this transformation programme is to
take a preventative approach wherever possible, including: earlier diagnosis and intervention;
support for recovery; and reducing avoidable harm.</p><p>To drive forward change,
NHS England is also investing in multidisciplinary perinatal mental health clinical
networks across the country, which includes general practitioners as part of the networks.
These clinical networks focus on collaborative working to develop local, integrated
pathways and to support early identification of those at risk of mental illness in
the perinatal period, to enable better outcomes for women in all communities.</p><p>Looking
ahead, we are continuing to work with the National Health Service to develop a 10
year plan for the future of the health service, underpinned by a five-year funding
offer which will see the NHS budget grow by over £20 billion a year in real terms
by 2023-24. The NHS will work closely with Government to produce the plan, which will
set out how the money will be used to deliver our vision for the health service and
to ensure every penny is well spent.</p><p>The plan will be published later this year.
Better access to mental health services is one of the priorities to help achieve the
Government’s commitment for parity of esteem between mental and physical health. This
will be a significant step forward towards improving, and continuing to deliver, high-quality
mental health support services.</p>
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