Hansard

Thank you, convener. I welcome the opportunity for my colleague Maree Todd, Hugh Masters and I to assist the committee with the inquiry into perinatal mental health in Scotland. I thank everyone who responded to the inquiry. The huge range of responses from professionals, organisations and individuals shows just how important the issue of perinatal mental health is right now, so I am pleased to be able to provide my support by coming here today. I also express my gratitude to those who kindly shared their personal experiences, which helps us to open up the conversations, to address stigma and, most important, to get a better understanding of what works well and what we need to do better. We recognise the impact that the pandemic has had on the mental health of new and expecting parents. The responses to the inquiry highlight the sobering reality of what that can look like daily. As a Government, we are making significant investments in our mental health services to encourage recovery and renewal as we emerge from the pandemic. It is in that context that I would like to share a brief summary of my vision for perinatal mental health services in Scotland. Since 2019, the perinatal and infant mental health programme board has overseen investment across community perinatal mental health services, the third sector, mother and baby units, infant mental health services and maternity and neonatal psychological interventions. In October, we published the new “Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board: delivery plan 2019-2020”, which sets out the next steps in our ambitious and compelling long-term goals not only to develop and sustain perinatal and infant mental health services in the most challenging times, but to ensure a systems approach to service development and delivery of those vital services. We will continue to build on the achievements of the programme board to offer the right kind of support to those who need it, at the right time. This year, more young parents, infants, fathers and those who have previously experienced pregnancy and neonatal loss are receiving support, thanks to the organisations that are funded through our small grants fund for the third sector. 08:45 The programme board will also continue to ensure that lived experience is at the heart of service development, implementation and provision. As I mentioned earlier, it is incredibly important to us that service provision be led by the needs of women and families, and that it builds on good practice and learning from positive and negative experiences of current services. We will take forward the work of the new delivery plan in collaboration with our partners and we will ensure that there is continued focus on raising awareness, promoting understanding and reducing stigma. I am extremely grateful to our statutory and third sector services for their continued passion and co-operation in delivering our strategic aims during the pandemic. With continued collaborative working, we can offer invaluable support for perinatal and infant mental health services across Scotland in providing a lifeline to parents, carers and families when they need it most. The inquiry responses also touch on pregnancy and baby loss; Maree Todd will answer questions on those issues. I assure the committee that, with the rest of the Scottish Government, Maree Todd and I recognise the tragic impact of baby loss and the profound effect that it can have on the lives of the bereaved families. We are committed to ensuring that women and families are provided with the right information, care and support, taking into account their individual circumstances. I look forward to working closely with you all on our important agenda for perinatal mental health to ensure not just that we are listening to the women and families of Scotland but that we inform our policies with their lived experiences in order to deliver high-quality and person-centred care. I will turn to your question, convener. We have made real progress on delivering on the report’s recommendations. Since March 2019, we have invested more than £16 million in perinatal and infant mental health services to develop a range of services, from specialist acute in-patient services through to third sector support for women and families who are in the perinatal period. We are focused on ensuring equitable access to sustainable mental health support throughout folks’ pregnancies, as well as on ensuring that we get it right during the perinatal period and in the child’s infancy. The voices of lived experience must be at the heart of our approach—I will probably say that again and again today, because I believe that it is immensely important in getting policy development and service delivery right. The programme board is making good progress on meeting the recommendations on delivering effective services. For example, it is providing £6 million of funding in 2021-22 across all health boards to establish specialist community perinatal mental health teams. In health boards that have more than 3,000 births a year, we have also funded enhanced psychological support for maternity and neonatal settings. Five boards—Fife, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire and Lothian among them—are in the process of establishing dedicated multidisciplinary infant mental health teams, with a majority of other health boards embedding an infant mental health focus within their perinatal teams. We have funded an increase in staffing for mother and baby units and have created the mother and baby unit family fund to support families in visiting their loved ones in in-patient care. We have also established the perinatal and infant mental health third sector fund, which so far has supported more than 2,000 parents, parents-to-be and infants. That comes with £1.8 million of funding. Beyond that, the committee will also be interested in finding out what is happening on the ground. We are looking very closely at the overview of service developments across Scotland. The situation is improving; some parts of the country were slow in using the resources that were allocated to them, but Hugh Masters, the board and I have been in fairly regular contact with some boards to ensure that they are back on track. On the service development front, we are looking at four key areas: perinatal mental health, infant mental health, the neonatal psychological interventions in the larger boards that I referred to earlier and, most important, the lived experience of and the level of engagement that boards are having with parents and families with regard to service delivery.