Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support General Practitioners provide to mothers experiencing perinatal mental health problems.

We are committed to improving mental health support for expectant and new mothers. General practitioners have a crucial role in identifying and treating perinatal mental illness. Support provided includes pre-conception counselling, monitoring during pregnancy, and referring women to Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) and specialist mental health services if necessary. We are expanding IAPT to reach 1.5 million people by 2020/21, and are investing £365 million in specialist perinatal mental health services so that 30,000 more women are able to access the right care at the right time, close to home, by 2020/21.