Written question WQ83645

Health boards are working towards meeting the relevant Royal College of Psychiatrists’ quality standards. Three health boards are reporting funded staffing positions that would enable full compliance with type one staffing standards. We are working with the health boards which are not yet fully compliant and this is a key priority area for service improvement funding this year. The pandemic has had a significant impact on services, including recruitment to specialist posts.

We are committed to developing specialist perinatal mental health services in line with the quality standards. We also continue to make service improvement funding available to ensure all services can meet the quality standards.

All health boards in Wales are signed up to the perinatal quality network, and have undertaken a review on progress towards meeting the wider standards. Health boards are developing action plans where a need for improvement has been identified.

Each health board is responsible for ensuring these teams serve the needs of their local populations. We recognise the importance of specialist health visitors within the perinatal mental health teams, however these posts are not included in the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ quality standards.

The Healthy Child Wales Programme includes a consistent range of evidence-based preventative and early intervention measures, as well as advice and guidance to support parenting. The programme offers a routine assessment by health visitors of attachment and bonding to support positive parent-child relationships and promote positive maternal and family emotional health and resilience. Parent-infant relationships are important in improving resilience in perinatal mental health and the clinical lead/network are working with other policy areas in this important area.

The Welsh Health Specialist Services Committee is working with NHS England to develop an eight-bed mother and baby unit for women in North Wales. This is being progressed as a priority.