North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has challenged the Deputy Health Minister today over the Welsh Government’s engagement with NHS England to develop a Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) in North East Wales, which could serve both sides of the border.
MBUs provide specialist in-patient care to women with mental health problems during pregnancy or after the birth of their child, whilst ensuring they remain with their newborn child. Currently women in Wales have to travel to England to access such care.
Although the Children, Young People and Education Committee’s October 2017 report 'Perinatal mental health in Wales' noted that 'North Wales alone does not have the necessary birth rates to sustain a specialist MBU’ it called on the Welsh Government ‘to engage proactively with providers in England to discuss options for the creation of an MBU in North East Wales that could serve the populations of both sides of the border.'
Questioning the Deputy Minister in the Welsh Parliament today, Mr Isherwood asked why, over two years later, little progress has been made.
He said: “The (Health) Minister accepted their recommendation that the Welsh Government ‘engage as a matter of urgency with NHS England to discuss options for the creation of a centre in north-east Wales that could serve the populations on both sides of the border’, saying 'I have asked the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee to work with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board to consider options in North Wales, including this recommendation'.
“Well, by my reckoning, that was 28-29 months ago, when the recommendation was urgent and the Minister said that he had asked then for that work to go forward.
“The Betsi Cadwaladr website's only reference to Perinatal Mental Health talks about their Perinatal Mental Health Service ‘as close to their homes as practical for mother and baby’, but doesn't refer to that key in-patient mental health provision.
“Only last month, BBC Wales reported that ‘Mothers in Wales are suffering due to the lack of a specialist in-patient mental health support unit - two years after the Welsh Government promised to develop one’. Why are we still waiting to hear and why can't the developing model in England continue to develop on a cross-border basis, as proposed, rather than on a singular basis, recognising a border that could negate the recommendations in this committee report?”
The Deputy Minister told Mr Isherwood that “discussions have now stopped, because the English services, have got this provider collaborative initiative, which is provision of local services in England, and they want to see how that turns out before they go into any further discussions with us”.
She added: “We do intend for those discussions to resume this year, and certainly, we are going to look at anything that Betsi Cadwaladr itself proposes”.
