Prolonged Grief Therapy

NHS England is seeking to commission specialist training for perinatal long term grief therapy based on evidence based approaches.

Most people find that having children can be a very positive experience, but the perinatal period (during pregnancy and the first 24 months after birth) can also be intensely stressful. Mental health issues are not uncommon during this time, whether they are new symptoms or the exacerbation of a pre-existing mental health condition/s.

Perinatal mental health issues can be brought on by many things, such as the experience of a traumatic pregnancy and childbirth, history of mental health problems or lack of support, and it can sometimes go under the radar because of feelings of shame, embarrassment and fear of the consequences. There is support available across the country from a range of services including NHS Talking Therapies for Anxiety and Depression, specialist perinatal mental health teams or, for the most severe illness, inpatient mother and baby units. To enable access to these services it is vital that early signs of mental health difficulties are recognised, especially by a midwife, health visitor or GP.

In the UK, estimates indicate that up to 27% of women develop a mental illness during pregnancy or within the first year after having a baby1, with up to five per cent experiencing a serious psychiatric disorder, and, in some cases mental health problems that are experienced during this period can be the cause of maternal death2.

Whilst some perinatal mental health issues are mild and transient, some are so severe and life threatening that they require immediate intervention and specialist treatment, which is usually accessed in specialist perinatal mental health services (through community services or inpatient mother and baby units).

NHS England is leading a programme of transformation to improve the care and support available to women who experience moderate to severe mental health during the perinatal period by enabling access to evidence-based specialist support.

As of March 2019, every NHS Integrated Care Systems (ICS) in the country has an operational specialist community perinatal mental health service for women experiencing moderate/severe complex mental health issues in the perinatal period. In 2019/20 they reported seeing over 30,000 women.

Whilst there has been significant progress in a short space of time to increase the provision of evidence-based specialist mental health care for women in the perinatal period, there is still further work to do. This is recognised in the NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) published in July 2019, in which NHS England commits to further increasing access to specialist perinatal mental health services. By 2023/24, at least 66,000 women with moderate severe/complex perinatal mental health difficulties

Further details and the tender documents can be downloaded from the link below:

https://health-family.force.com/s/Welcome

Additional information: To express interest and participate in the tender, please register and apply via Atamis e-sourcing portal https://health-family.force.com/s/Welcome.

Should Tenderers have any queries, or having problems using the portal, they should contact Helpdesk at:

Phone: 0800 9956035

E-mail: support-health@atamis.co.uk