How can ways of working with others be developed to improve perinatal mental health care?

NHS England (National Maternity Review, 2016) has a national drive to provide better perinatal mental healthcare to significantly improve the wellbeing of women, babies and families. In 2016, 23% of maternal deaths were attributed to mental health causes; therefore, healthcare providers need to create guidelines to encourage professionals to work together in the best interests of women and babies (National Maternity Review, 2016). This article will evaluate how ways of working together could be used to improve perinatal mental healthcare, including partnership working, interprofessional training, communities of practice, collective leadership and effective teamwork. These theories and frameworks may be used to emphasise the Nursing and Midwifery Council's (NMC) vision for professionals to ‘make sure that [people's] physical, social and psychological needs are assessed and responded to’ (NMC, 2018:5).

Systems thinking theory illustrates how changing collaboration throughout the layers of an organisation can improve perinatal mental healthcare. Maternity services are made up of different teams that are interdependent, but not always successfully interconnected (Figure 1).