Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential benefits to new mothers of the peer support mental health model.

We have not made a formal assessment of the potential benefits to new mothers of the peer-support model in mental health, and we have no plans at present to carry out a comparative cost assessment.

The National Institute for Health Research has commissioned an evidence review on the effectiveness of different models of peer support in perinatal mental health, to support future development and quality improvement. This work is ongoing.