It is a cause of great concern that Betsi Cadwaladr health board has no budget set aside for low-level or moderate perinatal mental health services, even though £3 million has been allocated for this every year across Wales. This is a significant gap, and it's truly concerning. I ask the Deputy Minister to investigate this and to rectify the situation at once. This funding gap means that women are deteriorating very quickly, developing into serious cases, with significant implications for them and their families, but also financial implications.

This situation exists despite the commitment that improving perinatal mental health has been a priority of the Welsh Government since the previous Senedd term, following a report by the Children, Young People and Education Committee. A commitment was made that every health board would have an accessible community service, as well as a commitment to improve access to and the quality of perinatal mental health services. There are weaknesses in the community provision across Wales, which is having a detrimental impact on too many women and too many families. But, these failings are painfully clear in north Wales, so we must move at pace to rectify this.

I'm also aware of a lack of spaces for community appointments and that many of these take place in unsuitable settings. This means that it's difficult for Betsi Cadwaladr health board to meet the required standards, not to mention being very discouraging for the staff and women involved. 

I now turn to services for the more serious cases. Five out of 100 pregnant women will develop a serious mental health condition. Between two and four out of every 1,000 women who have a child will require hospital care. A mother and baby unit is the appropriate place for this care to be received, but far too many women have to be treated on general psychiatric wards, and this means that they’re separated from their babies. This can only exacerbate the problem, surely. 

We know that a unit has been opened in south Wales, and that is wonderful to see. It's time that we saw data on that unit. I would like to ask the Deputy Minister to publish any report produced as a result of a review of the unit since it opened in April 2021. The Government had committed to undertaking a review in April 2022, but, to date, I haven’t been able to access any publicly available data. So, I look forward eagerly to seeing these reports and data, as well as the outcomes and the lessons to be learned, as we discuss a unit for north Wales.

The Children, Young People and Education Committee’s report noted that an MBU in the south would not necessarily be appropriate for mothers and their families in mid and north Wales. It was noted that options should be discussed with NHS England, with a view to establishing a centre in the north-east—the north-east of Wales, that is—that would be able to serve mothers and their children on both sides of the border. The argument that we hear is that there aren’t enough cases in north and mid Wales to justify a dedicated unit for the area, but beds in such a unit could be filled through coming to an arrangement with health boards nearby that are part of NHS England. Unfortunately, the decision made was to continue with an eight-bed unit in England with access given to families from north Wales, rather than proceeding in the other way and in the way, indeed, that was recommended in the committee’s report.

I understand that the intention is to build a unit in Cheshire, which is expected to open in spring of next year, as I understand it. However, it is very difficult to find any further details on this development. The mention made is that this unit will include two beds for women from north Wales, and that Betsi Cadwaladr health board could commission additional beds as demand increases. In my view, this is the incorrect model for meeting the needs of women in my constituency and beyond. It's the wrong model, when there was an alternative option of a model that would have been able to meet the needs in the same way.

Aside from the totally unrealistic distances that many mothers would have to travel, there is a further key and fundamental problem that arises in terms of meeting many families’ Welsh language needs. I can only begin to imagine how horrendous it would be to have to be far from home at such a time of vulnerability. If Welsh is your first language and it is, therefore, the natural medium of communication with your newborn baby, imagine how alienating that would feel in Cheshire, where the workforce would be monolingual English. If the unit were located in north Wales and it provided beds for women from England, there would be no language barrier or issue because Welsh speakers speak English too. So, we must give urgent attention to the linguistic element in the new model, if this is the model that will be pursued, or I'm afraid that the Government’s 'More than just words' strategy will be exposed as empty and meaningless. If it isn’t too late, I would ask the Deputy Minister to review the ill-advised decision to establish a unit for women from north Wales in England.

I have taken the opportunity in this short debate to outline the fundamental weaknesses in perinatal provision in north Wales, the deficiencies in community services, and the wholly inadequate and unsuitable model in the pipeline for serious cases. I do hope that the Government will take what I've said this evening seriously and will see that I'm trying to improve the situation. My hope is that, by putting this issue under the spotlight here in the Senedd, the Deputy Minister will ask her officials for an urgent report on the situation in north Wales, with firm recommendations for improving the situation for mothers, babies and families across north Wales. Thank you.