iHV supports MMHA response to DH’s Safer Maternity Care report

The iHV supports the Maternal Mental Health Alliance’s (MMHA’s) response to yesterday’s publication of the Department of Health report ‘Safer Maternity Care: Next steps towards the national maternity ambition’.

MMHA highlights the mention of perinatal mental health in the report (on page 17) – but would really like to push for mums’ mental health to be embedded across all of the actions coming out of the report. Maternity safety is not just physical health: unless women’s mental health is looked after, their and their babies’ lives could also be at risk.

Dr Cheryll Adams, Executive Director iHV said:

“iHV supports the push by MMHA to keep maternal mental health at the forefront of the government’s drive to improve maternity care. We welcome the implementation of this plan, including maternal mental health, and call on the government to ensure that specialist mental health support is available in every maternity /health visiting service to provide support to every mother and her family who require this service.”

Dr Alain Gregoire, Chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, commented:

“We welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State of a Safer Maternity Care action plan and the inclusion of improvements in perinatal mental health care in this. Mental illnesses are the most common serious health complications of pregnancy and the postnatal period, and a major cause of maternal death. There has been no sign of improvement in the effects of these illnesses on mothers and their babies in the past decades, despite significant improvements in physical health outcomes.”

Read Dr Alain Gregoire's full response and suggestions about how mental health could be embedded into the key themes and recommendations in the report

New report – Better Mental Health For All: A public health approach to mental health improvement

The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) is today [Wednesday 15 June] publishing a ground-breaking report about public mental health, which makes the case for improving mental health for everyone and preventing mental health problems.

“Better Mental Health For All: a public health approach to mental health improvement” is the work of the FPH’s Mental Health Committee in conjunction with the Mental Health Foundation. Public Health England supported the project financially, which enabled the FPH to commission the Mental Health Foundation’s involvement and support for production.

Go to Better Mental Health For All report

Report – Better Mental Health For All
A public health approach to mental health improvement

Professor John Ashton, President of FPH, said: “Mental illness affects everyone – either through our own experience, or our family and friends. Mental, emotional or psychological problems account for more disability than all physical health problems put together. There can be no health without mental health.”

This report focuses on what can be done individually and collectively to enhance the mental health of individuals, families and communities by using a public health approach. It is intended as a resource for public health practitioners to support the development of knowledge and skills in public mental health.

Section one – maps out why mental health is an important and often overlooked aspect of overall health.
Section two – outlines the risk and protective factors through the life course and across communities.
Section three – addresses approaches and interventions to improve mental healthat different stages of the life course and in different settings.
Section four – offers a practical guide to enable practitioners to support their own mental wellbeing.

iHV welcomes new HEE Guidance on Specialist Health Visitors in Perinatal and Infant Mental Health

The Institute of Health Visiting warmly welcomes the new commissioning and workforce development guidance on Specialist Health Visitors in Perinatal and Infant Mental health (PIMH) – What they do and why they matter, published today by Health Education England (HEE). It concludes that all women and their partners should have access to a specialist health visitor in perinatal and infant mental health (PIMH) and recommends at least one for every health visiting service.

Creating Specialist Health Visitor posts in PIMH within every health visiting service will play a valuable part in reducing the incidence and impact of postnatal depression and other perinatal mental health problems. This will be through earlier diagnosis, better intervention and support – creating savings on child and adult mental health services, and improved public health.

Dr Cheryll Adams, Executive Director of the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV), said:

“The iHV is delighted to endorse this new guidance which provides a framework for improvements in the services that health visitors can provide to families to promote their mental health.

“Through the health visiting ‘universal’ service, health visitors are well-placed to identify those families requiring additional support, especially where the mother (or indeed father) may be suffering from perinatal mental illness, or where the bond between parent and baby may be compromised. However, health visitors have many other roles and responsibilities taking their time during this important period of every child’s life and they would benefit from specialist support in this challenging arena.”

The framework sets out the important role of specialist health visitors in PIMH, illustrates the value to parents and other health professionals involved in a mother’s care and recommends that every woman should have access to a specialist Health Visitor as part of the multi-disciplinary team.

Read the full press release

NICE: Antenatal and postnatal mental health quality standard published

The Antenatal and postnatal mental health quality standard has been published on the NICE website.

The following quality statements are particularly pertinent to health visitors:

Statement 4. Women are asked about their emotional wellbeing at each routine antenatal and postnatal contact.
Statement 5. Women with a suspected mental health problem in pregnancy or the postnatal period receive a comprehensive mental health assessment.
Statement 6. Women referred for psychological interventions in pregnancy or the postnatal period start treatment within 6 weeks of referral.

Dr Cheryll Adams, Director of the iHV said:

“The Institute really welcomes this quality standard, as we are sure our members will. It can provide a basis for audit to drive up the quality of services.”

View the new quality standard

iHV welcomes Mental Health Taskforce report

The independent Mental Health Taskforce to the NHS in England publishes its report today – The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health.

The taskforce gives a frank assessment of the state of current mental health care across the NHS, highlighting that one in four people will experience a mental health problem in their lifetime and the cost of mental ill-health to the economy, NHS and society is £105bn a year.

In response to this report, NHS England has committed to the biggest transformation of mental health care across the NHS in a generation, pledging to help more than a million extra people and investing more than a billion pounds a year by 2020/21.

Dr Cheryll Adams, Executive Director of the iHV, said:

“The Institute very much welcomes this wide ranging report and hopes that indeed it will attract the promised funding of £1billion. We are very pleased that perinatal mental health has again been singled out as a mental health priority.”

One in five mothers suffers from mental health problems during pregnancy or in the first year after childbirth. It costs around £8.1 billion for each annual birth cohort or almost £10,000 per birth. Yet fewer than 15% of areas have the necessary perinatal mental health services and more than 40% provide none at all.

The report suggests that new funding should be invested to support at least 30,000 more women each year to access evidence-based specialist mental health care in the perinatal period.

The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health Report

Invitation to attend joint PHE and LGA Public Mental Health Summit 2016

Public Mental Health Summit 2016: Maintaining Momentum

Wednesday 23 March 2016 – 09:30 to 17:00

London

The joint Public Health England (PHE) and Local Government Association (LGA) Public Mental Health Summit 2016: Maintaining Momentum takes place on Wednesday 23 March 2016 in London.

Building on the back of three previous PHE mental health summits, PHE and the LGA are pleased to announce the first joint Public Mental Health Summit. This free to attend summit will provide the opportunity for attendees to network, exchange and share ideas on best practice.

This summit will showcase examples of embedding public mental health into different workstreams and discuss case studies of local public mental health work. Specific focus will be given to practical activity and the importance of local government to promote positive mental health, prevent mental illness, prevent suicide and improve the lives of people with, and recovering from, mental illness.

There are sessions around children’s mental health in the programme.

They will also be considering responses to the imminent Mental Health Taskforce independent report and introduce you to national work on wellbeing and public mental health being taken forward collaboratively between PHE, LGA, NHS England, local government, the voluntary sector and others for 2016/2017 and beyond.

Also announced, to mark the first joint summit on mental health hosted by PHE and the LGA, they are inviting poster presentations to be included in the conference programme. Please see the Abstract Submissions section of the event website for further information.

Registration and coffee will be from 08:30 to 09:25 and the summit will run from 09:30 to 17:00.

The event will take place at The Kia Oval, Surrey County Cricket Club, Kennington, London SE11 5SS.

See full programme details and to book your place

If you have any questions about the summit, please send an email to [email protected]