24th February 2016
As Sport Relief announces their campaign to raise the profile of maternal mental health, the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) highlights the vital role that health visitors have in supporting parents with perinatal mental ill-health, yet they currently have insufficient time or capacity for this important task.
Health visitors are the largest public health workforce. Through their delivery of services to every family with pre-school children, they are the best-placed public health professionals to identify, manage and provide early support for mothers and fathers with mild to moderate perinatal mental health problems and to seek early specialist help for those with more serious conditions.
In addition, health visitors are the trusted source of support for families according to research by the Early Intervention Foundation (2015). When parents were asked who they turned to for support, over 60% said their health visitor, closely followed by family and friends.
Dr Cheryll Adams, Executive Director of the Institute of Health Visiting, said: “Although parents will turn to their health visitor for support, often there is insufficient time for the health visitor to do an assessment. In a recent iHV survey, the results showed that 68% of health visitors have seen an increase in postnatal depression over the last two years. However, 1 in 4 health visitors cannot provide every family with a postnatal mental health (PMH) assessment at 6-8 weeks, and 3 in 4 cannot at 3-4 months as recommended by the Healthy Child Programme.
“While these figures have improved from previous years due to the investment in health visiting by the government, they make clear that sustained investment is needed to ensure that every mother has access to prompt help.”
Since 2013, the iHV has trained a total of 573 perinatal mental health champions who are driving service improvement in the quality of contacts for perinatal health and strengthening local services, as well as cascading the training to their peers.
Dr Adams continued: “Our PMH training has now been delivered to well over 10,000 health visitors and others across England. However, for this training to have the impact it should, more health visitors need the time to use what they have learnt to improve services, especially at the recommended contacts.
“There is also a need to encourage mothers to feel confident in disclosing how they are feeling to their health visitor for them to be able to offer this help. And with many types of help available, both professional and non-professional, it is for the mother to decide which may best suit her circumstances.
“Health visitors have always made a huge contribution to supporting pre-school children and their families and are the best-placed professional to help give all children the best start in life. Perinatal mental health is an incredibly important area of healthcare which can have a negative effect on the health and wellbeing of our society when we don’t recognise it early.”
ENDS
For more information, contact Julie Cooper, Communications and Marketing Manager at the Institute of Health Visiting on 07508 344716 or [email protected]
Notes to editors
About the Institute of Health Visiting
- The Institute of Health Visiting is A UK Centre of Excellence supporting the development of universally high-quality health visiting practice. It was launched on 28th November 2012 to promote excellence in health visiting practice to benefit all children, families and communities.
- The aim for the iHV is to raise standards in health visiting practice, so improving public health outcomes for all children, families and communities.
- For more information go to ihv.org.uk
- Follow the Institute of Health Visiting on Twitter @iHealthVisiting and Facebook
State of Health Visiting Survey 2015
- 1413 members of the Institute of Health Visiting completed the survey in November 2015
- 68% of health visitors have seen an increase in postnatal depression over the last two years.
- 1 in 4 health visitors cannot provide every family with a postnatal mental health (PMH) assessment at 6-8 weeks, and 3 in 4 cannot at 3-4 months as recommended by the government.
