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<p>This Government is committed to improving access to perinatal mental health services
for women during pregnancy and in the first postnatal year. In January 2016 the Government
set out that an additional £290 million will be made available over the next five
years to 2020/21, over and above the money identified in the Spring Budget, to invest
in perinatal mental health services. This is funded from within the Department’s overall
Spending Review settlement and means that in total from 2015/16 to 2020/21 £365 million
will be invested in perinatal mental health services.</p><p> </p><p>We are aware that
there is unacceptable variation in the levels of access to high quality, NICE-recommended
specialist perinatal mental health care for women across England. A 2014 census identified
that 40% of women in England have no access to specialist perinatal mental health
services and that is why we have confirmed this additional investment. The funding
should enable significant progress towards closing this gap and will help to enable
women across the country to access evidence-based specialist support, in the community
or through inpatient mother and baby services, closer to their home, when they need
it. It is anticipated that, by 2020/21, around 30,000 more women should be able to
access appropriate specialist support.</p><p><br> This new funding, together with
the recommendations of the forthcoming report of the independent Mental Health Taskforce,
will enable NHS England to work with partners to design a longer-term transformation
programme to build capacity and capability in specialist perinatal mental health services
over the next five years. This will include setting detailed plans for how the additional
investment will be targeted over the period to 2020/21 and setting clear outcome measures
and metrics to monitor the impact of the funding on perinatal mental health provision.</p><p>
</p><p>In 2015/16 work is already underway to lay the foundations for this longer-term
work programme through targeted funding of activities to build capacity in specialist
services. This will include, for example, a £1 million investment in strengthening
clinical networks across the country. It is also expected to include the provision
of national and regional benchmarking data and analytical support to regions, and
work to develop clinical leadership capacity. Work will also continue to support the
development of specialist mother and baby units in the regions identified as most
in need of new services.</p><p> </p><p>To ensure the workforce are available and appropriately
trained, NHS England is working closely with Health Education England and key stakeholders
to better understand the future workforce commissioning requirements and how it is
best to meet multi professional education and training needs.</p>
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