Currently, there are two regional Mother and Baby Units in Scotland. These units provide high level specialist care to mothers and their infants who are experiencing severe perinatal mental illness.

The units are at St John’s Hospital, Livingston hosted by NHS Lothian and Leverndale Hospital, Glasgow hosted by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Each Mother and Baby Unit can take up to six women and their babies.

Each Mother and Baby Unit operates on a regional basis and can be accessed by women living anywhere in Scotland when this is deemed clinically appropriate.

Delivering Effective Services (2019) recommended that Scotland could benefit from an additional four Mother and Baby Unit beds. These additional beds could be created by expanding one or both of the existing Mother and Baby Units, or by creating a new, third, Mother and Baby Unit in the north of Scotland.

The Scottish Government are currently seeking views to help us understand the needs of women and families and the best way to increase Mother and Baby Unit capacity in Scotland.

Scottish Government officials are hosting a series of online discussion events to provide another way for people to give us their views. The online events will be held via MS Teams and are free to attend for anyone who is interested. Each event will be limited to a maximum of 15 people and registration is essential.

We would be particularly interested to hear from;

• Those living or working in remote or rural areas, including island communities, the North of Scotland, and Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders.

• BAME families or families who speak a home language other than English or those working with them

• LGBTI+ families or those working with them

• Disabled families or those working with them

Notes will be made at the discussion events and these will be included in the analysis of responses to the consultation. Participant’s contributions will be anonymised.

Events will be treated as an open forum and those attending should only contribute input that they are comfortable saying in front of others.

Respond to the consultation online (closes 31st May): https://consult.gov.scot/mental-health-unit/mother-and-baby-unit/

Read the consultation paper : https://www.gov.scot/publications/options-increase-mother-baby-unit-mbu-capacity-consultation/

Read the consultation paper (Easy Read version): https://www.gov.scot/publications/options-increase-mother-baby-unit-mbu-capacity-consultation-easy-read-version/