Perinatal Services

1. Where are we now?

• We’ve moved back to the Mount Hospital in Leeds after a temporary move during the pandemic.
• We have expanded our perinatal services in line with the NHS 5-year plan for mental health, increasing the provision of care and treatment in people’s own homes, outpatient clinics, and inpatient care.
• Achieving our ambition to increase access to specialist mental health care provision in Leeds.
• Offering mental health support in two women’s prisons to address mental health inequalities for women who have babies in prison.

2. Where do we want to be in 12-18 months' time?

• Continuously improving access for women and their partners to our community perinatal mental health team.
• Create six additional beds in our Mother and Baby Unit.

3. How are we going to get there?

• The Mother and Baby Unit will join the Yorkshire and Humber Perinatal Provider Collaborative, where multiple trusts collaborate to enhance local care.
• Increasing community engagement events with our perinatal access and inclusion team.
• Offer partner assessments by the perinatal community service.
• Offer a programme of Leeds-wide perinatal mental health awareness training for medical students, student nurses, midwives, and Allied Health Professionals.

4. Improving service user and carer experience.

• We will involve service users and carers in our planning for the future of our services.
• Enhance the partner and sibling groups within the perinatal service.
• Continue to use friends and family feedback to develop our services and improve service user experience.
• Support and educate the Leeds workforce to better identify women who might be facing mental health challenges during the perinatal period.

5. How we will improve staff experience

• Provide high quality induction to our services for new staff.
• Continue to support our staff after serious incidents to help them recover and to learn lessons.
• Provide educational and development opportunities to our staff.

6. How we will reduce health inequalities and improve equality, diversity and inclusion

• Expand on the learning and the work of our perinatal access and inclusion team to better address the health needs of ethnic minority and diverse populations across Leeds.
• Utilise our two new inclusion peer support workers working alongside our Inclusion Coordinator.
• Work with our diverse communities to reduce stigma related to mental health.
• The Mother and Baby Unit is improving inpatient experiences for women from diverse backgrounds by gathering feedback and planning enhancements.