Perinatal Mental Health

Baroness Merron Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berger]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the spending on perinatal mental health services in England in the financial year 2024-25.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government recognise the importance of perinatal mental health services. Spending on specialist community perinatal mental health services continued to increase in 2024-25. The latest NHS figures show that integrated care boards spent £212 million that year, which is an increase of £18 million from 2023 to 2024. This does not include spending on mother and baby units. The final spend for those in 2024-25 is not yet available, but £58 million was spent in 2023-24.

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for her reply and declare my interest as chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance. It is heartening to hear the Government’s assessment that there have not been any real terms cuts to perinatal mental health services this year. That is in spite of evidence from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. I listened very closely to what my noble friend said. She will know that maternal suicide remains the leading cause of maternal death in this country six weeks to a year after birth. Will the Government look to reintroduce the target to increase access to perinatal mental health care, which was dropped from the 2025-26 NHS planning guidance, to ensure that commissioners do not divert funds elsewhere?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my noble friend for her work as the chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance. I share her great concerns about the rate of suicide among new mothers in particular. The NHS planning guidance is not an exhaustive list of everything the NHS does. I am sure my noble friend will remember that the Darzi review highlighted that one of the problems in the NHS was too many targets. We have reduced the number of national priorities by focusing on what matters most to patients but, as my noble friend acknowledged, maternity funding has not been cut. Indeed, healthcare systems leaders now have more autonomy to meet the demands of their local populations.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as CEO of Muslim Women’s Network UK. We conducted maternity research in 2022 and found that there is a lack of awareness in some minority ethnic communities that women can suffer from poor mental health during and after pregnancy, which results in the situation that, when women ask for help, they are not believed by their families and are accused of being a bad mother or even possessed by evil spirits. Will the Government look at doing some awareness raising of perinatal mental health in minority ethnic communities and make those services more accessible to those women?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point, particularly on voices not being heard. I am sure she heard the announcement on maternity safety made by the Secretary of State on Monday. He highlighted the issue of women’s voices and that women are so often not listened to. That is particularly the case among the minority ethnic groups the noble Baroness referred to. I assure her that that is taken into account. I am glad to say that there are record numbers of women accessing community perinatal mental health services. On the point raised, that is why it is for local areas to serve their local communities in the way she describes.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, given the £8.1 billion annual cost of untreated perinatal mental illness, will the Government mandate a ring-fenced, inflation-proof budget for perinatal mental health services within ICBs to ensure sustainable long-term investment, rather than relying purely on discretionary funding?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I do not share the view that it is discretionary funding, not least because what matters are the outputs, which are, as I described, that a record nearly 65,000 women accessed a specialist community perinatal mental health service or maternal mental health service in the 12 months to April 2025. That gives some idea of the scale—that is a 95% increase compared with four years earlier. So the output is absolutely there. Was it ever the case that all needs were met? No, it was not, even before the change to the planning guidance and the ring-fencing. I emphasise again that this Government’s whole approach is to ensure that local communities are properly served. That is why ICBs can make decisions about how they provide what I regard as first-rate services.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I support much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, said, particularly about the leading cause of maternal deaths—39% of them—being suicide. Not only that: 37% of those mothers who took their own lives had a known history of mental health issues, yet they were not properly looked after. That is the main problem. Although guidelines exist for screening mothers during pregnancy and after the birth of a baby, they are not universally followed. There is a great variation in the adoption of these guidelines and using the screening tools that are available to identify mothers at risk during pregnancy. We need to put much more effort into that. On the cost, there is only one small model that describes the benefits of identifying mothers at risk during pregnancy and after delivery. We need a detailed study to show the cost-benefit analysis of doing that.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord, building on my noble friend’s point, makes a very important point. I will add to what he said. The impact on affected families is absolutely devastating and has very long-lasting effects, particularly on children. As the noble Lord said, the suicide prevention strategy outlines what clinicians should do, which is complete screening of women’s mental health during pregnancy and the first year after pregnancy. I hear the points that the noble Lord made and will put them into my discussions about suicide prevention, because I am also concerned about the number of people who take their own lives who are in no contact with the health services; we have to find a way of making contact with them. This is less the case in this circumstance, but that theme is still there. I thank the noble Lord for that contribution.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, following an Answer to a Written Question from my noble friend Lord Kamall, data shows that last year only one post was available in the north-east and one in the south-west for obstetrics and gynaecology specialist training stage 3, and only four posts were available in London. How will the Government rectify the dearth of provision?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness is aware, the long-awaited 10-year plan will be with us shortly. That will set out the parameters for change and the services that we need. Following that, there will a long-term workforce plan, which will deal with the kind of matters the noble Baroness referred to.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I had not intended to ask a question but, following on from the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, impacts other than the most undesirable one of suicide come from postnatal depression. Among those are an inability of new mothers to cope well with the demands on them and therefore provide the care that very young children need. Is the Minister confident that the way that the NHS now—I am struggling not to say “gets rid of”—moves mothers out of hospital very soon after birth provides the right start to the sort of care that particularly vulnerable women need immediately after giving birth?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My noble friend raises a very useful consideration. Decisions about how long a new mother stays in hospital are a local matter and specific to that woman. The other point I want to raise is that the services we are talking about have actually been expanded to provide care to women for up to two years after birth. That is incredibly important, as is providing a mental health assessment and signposting support for partners, who we should also remember in all of this. The services we are talking about cross the entire span and go on for two years beyond it. That certainly underpins the kind of services we want to see, but I certainly agree with my noble friend that individual cases must be seen as individual cases.