specialist perinatal community mental health team
We’re working with our partners across the health and social care organisations aiming to ensure high quality specialist perinatal and parent infant mental health services, including the ongoing development of the specialist perinatal community mental health team. This team is provided by Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust and works in close partnership with parent infant mental health services, adult mental health services and a wide range of other services in every borough to support women, their infants and families across Greater Manchester.
The service focuses on the 1001 critical days from pregnancy to the age of 2 aimed at promoting early identification, prevention and treatment. Another important aspect of their work is to raise awareness of perinatal and parent infant mental health in this critical period and the importance of the parent infant relationship. They offer training, support and consultation across health and social care services and the voluntary sector. We want to make sure that families receive the right help, at the right time by the right service and the partnerships with GPs, maternity services, children’s services, social care and adult mental health services and the voluntary sector organisations are key.
Every borough has an integrated perinatal and parent infant mental health pathway aimed at promoting a seamless, flexible and high-quality responsive care for all families. Families with lived experience are involved in the development and monitoring of the services.
Since 2018, three new specialist perinatal community mental health teams have been developed to provide comprehensive community support. Each team operates in a specific area of Greater Manchester:
- Cluster 1 – South Manchester, Stockport and Trafford
- Cluster 2 – Salford, Bolton, Bury and Wigan
- Cluster 3 – North Manchester, Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside.
The hub of this service is the Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) Inpatient Unit (Andersen Ward), a ten bedded specialist ward based at Laureate House, Wythenshawe Hospital in South Manchester.