Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:27 pm on 31 January 2018.
Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm going to have to be very quick because I haven't got a lot of time, so I won't be able to respond to everybody's points, but thank you to everyone who's contributed, and it's great to see such a range of speakers across the Chamber on this very important subject. I'll just try and pick up on some of the points from the debate.
Darren Millar referred to the importance of psychological treatments, and that is absolutely key. We had very powerful evidence in that area. And I think it is very important that we remember that the issues that we dealt with around medication could be alleviated by access to psychological therapies because, often, it's medication that is put into the void. Darren also talked about the importance of needing to map services, and the Cabinet Secretary in his response referred to the work that's being undertaken, the research on that, and I think that will be a very useful piece of work going forward that I hope that the committee will be able to return to.
Llyr reminded us of the timeliness of this debate and the fact that it's Time to Talk Day tomorrow and the issues around stigma that we dealt with, as with Jenny. Stigma was a very clear theme in this inquiry and I think it's important to remember that stigma is a particular issue for women having perinatal mental illness because they are very fearful that they may in a position where they might have the child taken away from them. So, it is absolutely crucial that we tackle those issues around stigma. That was also picked up by Jenny, who also raised the issues around continuity of care, which Michelle also spoke about—again, another very consistent theme in the inquiry. Women are fed up of having to tell the same story to lots of different professionals. It is really important, notwithstanding the constraints that there are around the workforce, that we seek to get that continuity of relationship there, both with midwives and with health visitors.
Both Mark and Julie referred to the importance of the third sector. And that was, as Julie said, a really powerful piece of evidence, really—that we have these organisations that literally are running based on carrier-bag collections in supermarkets, yet they're having referrals from social services and from GPs, and that simply has to stop. We have to have a system where health boards and other bodies recognise the role that they play and fund them accordingly.
Caroline Jones, in common with a number of Members, added her support for the establishment of mother and baby unit provision in Wales. It is absolutely key and I think that we have to remember that, in addition to obviously being a very difficult time for women, perinatal mental illness is actually a leading cause of maternal death. The consequences of not getting that care right can be very serious indeed. So, we do need to invest in this provision and get it right.
So, can I just close by thanking again everybody who contributed to the debate, including the Cabinet Secretary, all the Members of the committee for their hard work on this inquiry, the committee team who, as always, have been fantastic, and everybody who engaged with us on this important piece of work? We will be revisiting this on a regular basis and monitoring the implementation of this report going forward. Thank you very much.