No assessment has been made of the adequacy of the level of support offered to women with postnatal mental health problems.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) postnatal care guideline, published in July 2006, recommends a fully personalised plan for each woman, which takes into account her and her baby’s individual needs. The guideline also places great importance on healthcare professionals, taking into account the particular needs of individual families and on having the competencies required for each routine postnatal visit or appointment with the mother or baby, so that they can recognise any signs and symptoms of potentially life-threatening conditions. It recommends that all maternity care providers (whether working in hospital or in primary care) should implement an externally evaluated structured programme that encourages breastfeeding. NICE also made recommendations in its recent guidance to improve services for women who experience mental health problems during or after pregnancy. We expect mental health services available for such women to improve as local services implement the Department’s and the Institute’s guidance in light of their assessment of local need.
One of the key commissioning mechanisms of the framework for Commissioning health and wellbeing, which went out for consultation in March 2007, includes placing emphasis on the importance of primary care trusts and local authorities working together to develop practical and deliverable proposals for improving maternity services including the development of maternity, neonatal and perinatal mental health networks and Children’s Trusts.
Our framework document “Maternity Matters: Choice, access and continuity of care in a safe service” outlines our strategy to deliver and achieve our commitment to give women clinically appropriate choice over the maternity services they will receive. This was published on 3 April and it includes outlining the roles that service providers and commissioners will have in the provision of woman-focused, family-centred maternity services, incorporating the need to commission high-quality, equitable, integrated maternity services as part of maternity, neonatal and perinatal mental health networks according to local need.