Postnatal mental health support cut despite rise in women seeking help
Postnatal mental health services are closing across the country due to a lack of funding despite record numbers of women seeking help, The Independent can reveal.
One in five of the 600,000 women a year who give birth in the UK experience a mental health condition, NHS figures show – and a quarter have a negative birth experience.
Mental health conditions are the leading cause of maternal death between six weeks and a year after birth – accounting for one in three deaths, according to the Oxford University-led group MBBRACE-UK, which records all maternal and baby deaths in the UK.
Postnatal suicide rates rose by more than 50 per cent during the pandemic and have remained high ever since. Between 2017 and 2019, the rate of suicide was 0.46 for every 100,000 mothers who gave birth in that period, but between 2021 and 2023 – the latest figures available – the rate was 0.70 per 100,000 mothers.
Although a record 57,000 new and expectant mothers accessed NHS mental health services in 2023 – up a third on the previous year – there remains a postcode lottery in access to NHS treatment. Some women wait up to six months for assessment and up to a year for treatment, a report by Maternal Mental Health Alliance found last year.
But in January, the Government announced it was scrapping funding for the nationwide rollout of Women’s Health Hubs, which aimed to improve access to services such as perinatal mental health support.
“This is a completely neglected mental health crisis, on an extremely large scale,” Danny Chambers MP, the Lib Dem spokesperson on mental health, warned Parliament in February.
And now several charities which plug the gaps in NHS support, by helping parents unable to access NHS help or who are stuck on waiting lists, have been forced to close or suspend services because of funding cuts.
Charity directors have warned funding for maternal support has been “deprioritised”, particularly in recent years as competition for grants has become increasingly competitive.
One charity director was even told by a funding board member: “Mothers will never be the priority”.
Charities which have closed include Bluebell Care Trust, which ran perinatal support services for thousands of mothers and fathers in Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Devon – many of whom were referred directly by NHS services. It went into liquidation in late 2023, with its latest accounts showing a £52,000 shortfall in funds.
Maggie Gordon-Walker is the founder of the Sussex-based charity Mothers Uncovered. It supports mothers from all walks of life, including those with birth trauma who typically face waits of more than a year for a birth debrief on the NHS. But last year it had to pause its support groups after losing funding.
The charity applied to around 50 funding schemes but only received contributions from a handful. “Sadly, mothers are rarely seen as worth funding – they’re not a priority. We often only get funding for our young mothers group because they are still considered ‘children’,” MS Gordon-Walker said.
The weekly support group run by Motherly Love, based in Leytonstone, East London, also had to close earlier this year because it could no longer afford its annual £5,000 running costs.
It has supported more than 200 women since it was set up eight years ago by mothers Gemma Capocci and Milli Richards, who both struggled with their postnatal mental health and wanted to prevent other women going through the same.
They have applied for five or six local authority grants but were rejected from all.
Ms Richards said: “When you support a mum you don’t just change their lives, you change the lives of their children, their partner, you enable them to care for other people – it has a huge reach.”
Ms Capocci added: “I think some people see these groups as just a ‘nice coffee morning’ for mothers, when actually we’re helping women get referred to mental health support, we’re supporting those waiting for treatment – we have worked with women who say we have literally saved their lives.”
Groups such as Motherly Love feel the system is stacked against them. Often run by mothers on a voluntary basis, they struggle to complete time-consuming grant applications while balancing their volunteer work alongside caring for their own families and holding down jobs.
But without them, there is no support for mothers like Anna, who tried to end her life a year after her daughter was born, and was afraid to ask professionals for help. “I loved my daughter but I was absolutely miserable. I felt so lonely, isolated and I didn’t see any way out,” she said.
“I was terrified that someone would take my baby away from me if I reached out,” she said. She believes having regular contact with support workers would have helped.
“If I had a check-up scheduled in the diary with someone who could have gently approached the topic of postnatal depression, that could have saved me,” she added.
Labour MP Laura Kyrke-Smith lost her friend Sophie to postnatal suicide and led a debate on maternal mental health in Westminster Hall. She said: “Since losing my friend Sophie to suicide, I have become aware of how prevalent maternal mental health challenges are, but how little attention they get.”
She added the Government was actively working on suicide prevention “but there is always more to do”.
“The Government have embarked on transformative work to improve the country’s health, and achieving better maternal mental health outcomes must be part of that plan,” she said.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Too many women are not receiving the safe, compassionate and personalised maternity and postnatal care they deserve.
“Through our Plan for Change we are driving up standards, training thousands more midwives and maternal mental health workers, and we have made available specialist community perinatal mental services in all areas of England.
“We are also investing £126 million in family hubs and Start for Life services – which include mental health support – to help parents through pregnancy to early childhood.”
If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
The Last of Us season two is fighting with its own video game origins
What comes after the end of the world? That was the central question of The Last of Us, a breathtaking 2013 video game set in the aftermath of a deadly pandemic that leaves the United States a cutthroat wasteland (so different from the America we see today…). It was adapted, in 2023, for the small screen and showed a pathway – a walkthrough, as gamers say – for the tricky act of converting a beloved game into a thrilling, poignant TV show. What, then, comes next? How do you follow up what followed the end of the world? That’s the task for the second season of Sky’s The Last of Us.
Five years have passed since Joel (Pedro Pascal) saved Ellie (Bella Ramsey), the only person known to be immune to the hellish cordyceps virus, from the clutches of militants who wanted to cut out her brain and turn it into a vaccine. Since then, they’ve made a life for themselves in the utopian outpost of Jackson, Wyoming, where Joel is the de facto leader of a community flourishing while the world ends. But not everything is as rosy as it looks. The mushroom folk are evolving, and waves of migrants still wash up at Jackson’s overstretched walls. “If our lifeboat is swamped,” Joel tells his lieutenants, “we leave them out there.” Governing this community isn’t Joel’s only, or hardest, responsibility. That honour falls to the act of playing daddy to an increasingly surly teenage Ellie.
When an act of violence perpetrated by the mysterious Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) shakes Ellie out of her adolescent malaise, the series springs into action. This is a revenge narrative at its core; Ellie and best friend Dina (Isabela Merced) take a 600-mile journey through scenic Idaho in pursuit of Abby and her faction, the Washington Liberation Front (or “Wolves”). “So much for happy proud rainbow town,” Ellie observes, drily, as they enter corpse-strewn Seattle. In the husk of the city, fungal foes are the least of Ellie and Dina’s problems. This is a maze of “levels”; different obstacles the duo must face in their pursuit of Abby, and justice. It is the show’s video game origins necessarily reasserting themselves.
The success of both Naughty Dog’s acclaimed video game series (although the follow-up instalment is considered something of a “difficult second album”) and the first chapter of the show was born out of its sense of vicious realism. The nature of the virus and the disintegration of civilisation – fast in some places, slow in others – was exquisitely captured. The bond between Joel and Ellie was as moving as any platonic relationship on the telly. None of the savagery of the world has been lost in the intervening half-decade: hordes of goofy undead still come sprinting at our protagonists, and brutal new factions emerge in the darkness. As travelling companions, cynical Ellie and luminous Dina have a relationship that’s more romantically charged, but which retains that chalk-and-cheese dynamic. “I was just trying to sound like a badass,” Ellie tells Dina after delivering a trademark barb. “You don’t need to try,” Dina reassures her.
Bella Ramsey – who cut her teeth helping to face down the Night King in Game of Thrones – has been acclaimed by critics in her role as Ellie, if not by the game’s most rabid fans. As ever, the critics have it right. Her character, here, has developed under Joel’s clear tuition, becoming tougher, more stoical and yet losing nothing of that streak of innocence that immunises her against moral collapse. This season’s main additions to the cast – Dever’s Abby, a broken spirit; Merced’s Dina, a gregarious sidekick; Jeffrey Wright’s Isaac, a loquacious psychopath – add depth, even while Pascal is largely absent from the main narrative. This is a well-drawn world, and the population is expanding beyond its compelling protagonists.
Perhaps it’s too fanciful to imagine that a show of this scale and budget would get greenlit without some existing IP, in this case a video game series, to draw from. Those origins are, at times, a narrative drag. After all, in the game, you can die and die and die again, meaning every scenario involves near-certain death. You just reset and go again. But here, the odds are, necessarily, forever in our heroes’ favour. There are no save points in a linear narrative. And yet the show must do enough to appease the 10.3 million people who bought The Last of Us Part II, and whose expensive Sky subscription is possibly predicated on that fandom. And so, the narrative unfolds in a way that owes more to its source medium than its destination genre – building, always, through paths of discovery, towards a showdown.
Is The Last of Us a great TV show, or just a great adaptation of a video game? In truth, it sits somewhere between these positions. Its origins are an unspoken constraint, but showrunner Craig Mazin (and Neil Druckmann, the architect of the game, who co-creates this adaptation) have done a fine job translating for the screen. The world has ended over and over, on screens big and small, but it has rarely been as plausible – or compelling – as the barbaric wasteland of Last of Us’s second season.
‘The Last of Us’ season two begins Monday 14 April on Sky and Now
The global event bringing fresh energy to planet-positive solutions
As we navigate significant environmental and social challenges, the return of ChangeNOW, the world’s biggest expo of solutions for the planet, is much needed to reinvigorate climate action. The 2025 edition, which will take place from April 24th to 26th, will host 140 countries, 40,000 attendees, 10,000 companies and 1,200 investors.
Visionary leaders, established businesses and start-ups alike will gather to showcase over 1,000 sustainable solutions and groundbreaking innovations in key sectors such as clean energy, biodiversity, sustainable cities and the circular economy.
The ChangeNOW 2025 summit will be held at the iconic Grand Palais in Paris, a nod to the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Reuniting for the occasion will be guest speakers Mary Robinson, the former (and first female) president of Ireland, Laurent Fabius, former French prime minister, Patricia Espinosa, former UN climate chief and diplomat and Diána Ürge-Vorsatz, leading climate scientist and professor – all of whom were in the French capital a decade earlier to help shape the Paris Agreement at COP21.
There may have been obvious setbacks to environmental policy around the world of late, the United States’ recent withdrawal from the Paris Agreement being a notable one. However ChangeNOW 2025 intends to reaffirm the spirit of Paris, while serving as a catalyst for progress ahead of COP30 and the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC). “Ten years after COP21, ChangeNOW is where leaders and changemakers converge to accelerate the ecological and social transition,” states Santiago Lefebvre, founder and president of ChangeNOW. “Thousands of solutions will be showcased demonstrating that meaningful progress is within reach.”
His message of positive climate action will be supported by a multitude of world famous faces who will be in attendance at the auspicious event. Natalie Portman, Academy award-winning actress, director, author, activist, and producer; Captain Paul Watson, Founder of Sea Shepherd and Ocean Conservationist; Hannah Jones, CEO of The Earthshot Prize and Olympic champion boxer and gender equality advocate Imane Khelif are just a few of the names set to appear at ChangeNOW 2025.
With over 500 speakers and 250 conference sessions exploring climate action, biodiversity protection, resource management, and social inclusion, ChangeNOW 2025 will also hear the insights of acclaimed corporate leaders from Accor, Bouygues, Henkel, Lidl, Nexans, and Saint-Gobain, who will explain how businesses can be the ones to drive real change.
And the event will not only be an opportunity for global policymakers to discuss next steps in climate action, it will also be a platform for nations to showcase local innovations through their country pavilions. Expect impactful solutions from countries including South Africa, The Netherlands, and Ukraine – demonstrating international collaboration on the topic of climate.
In addition to the packed program of speakers, workshops, exhibits and networking opportunities, ChangeNOW 2025 will host the Impact Job Fair on Saturday, 26 April, with over 150 recruiters and training organisations offering in excess of 600 roles. Dedicated to the public and young professionals, the interactive workshops, educational activities, and career opportunities in sustainable sectors on offer aim to inspire the next generation of changemakers.
The summit will also present the annual Women for Change conference and the accompanying portrait exhibition, which showcases 25 women who are set to have a significant positive impact on their communities, countries or on a global scale over the next 10 years. Created in 2021, the Women for Change initiative aims to platform and provide opportunities for women who are leading change around the world but require further recognition or investment to continue their work. The annual flagship event, which takes place on the afternoon of April 24th, offers women the chance to discuss new ideas, network with likeminded people, and also acquire funding to help solidify their leadership, and amplify their impact.
Step outside the Grand Palais and take a few steps to the Port des Champs Elysées, on the bank of the Seine, where the The Water Odyssey village awaits. One of the event’s standout features, the immersive 1,000 m² exhibition is open to the public and highlights solutions to maritime and river sustainability challenges – offering a mix of conferences, interactive displays, and sensory experiences to engage all ages.
For three days, ChangeNOW will transform Paris into the global capital of impact, bringing together policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and the public in the pursuit of sustainable progress.
Book your ChangeNOW 2025 ticket here
The US president must stop his ‘Trump Slump’ becoming a global one
Most shocks in capital markets are, by definition, unexpected. They sometimes derive purely from some almost random-seeming shift in market sentiment, albeit with more deep-set fundamental factors at work. The Great Crash of 1929 and the stock market crash of October 1987 – Black Monday – fall neatly into that category.
Others are more clearly understood in real time, but still a shock: the global financial crisis of 2008 is comprehensible from a distance, albeit famously seen as a “black swan” event. Still others are more purely external – Arab nations imposing an oil curfew after the Yom Kippur war in 1973; or whatever bat, pangolin or Chinese lab assistant was responsible for the coronavirus getting loose.
The Trump tariff crash of 2025 is an altogether unusual affair – one of the few such catastrophes to befall the savings and livelihoods of millions of people caused by the stubbornness of one man.
Because it is Donald Trump – and he alone – who is responsible not only for the substance of his reckless shutdown of US trade with the rest of the world, but the deeply flawed design of the tariff schedules, the practically unprecedented suddenness of their introduction, and the incomprehensible rationale for the policy. Certainly, Mr Trump made no secret of his love for – “the most beautiful word” – tariffs.
But the scale and incompetence that has been attached to his attack on trade has stunned and appalled the world. Worse even than that, it has left people confused.
At one point over the weekend, serious analysts were suggesting that Mr Trump actually intended for the markets to crash. In most cases, this was not a product of the over-conspiratorial minds of the Trump cultists, but because the president himself had reposted a story on social media suggesting that he was “Purposely CRASHING The Market”. A White House spokesperson had to state that the president did not, in fact, deliberately wipe some $8 trillion off the world’s stock markets – another unwelcome precedent set by this president.
The question then arises: “What does Mr Trump think he is doing?” The answer is that no one knows, not even the president.
Some, including the president himself in his unorthodox Rose Garden presentation and his secretary for commerce, Howard Lutnick, suggest that it is all about reindustrialising the United States and generating “trillions” of long-term tax revenues. In his address to workers at Jaguar Land Rover on Monday, Sir Keir Starmer admitted that tariffs are “a huge challenge for our future, and the global economic consequences could be profound”.
Less than comfortingly, Mr Trump compares what he’s putting the previously healthy American economy through to a patient undergoing an operation. Others, occasionally also including the president himself, suggest it is merely another of his brilliant negotiating tactics, and point excitedly to the response of nations such as Vietnam, Israel and Argentina offering zero-tariff deals with America – but which would therefore yield zero returns for the proposed new US “External Revenue Service”.
Put simply, it is a matter of “Tariffs bad – uncertainty even worse”. Businesses and households cannot plan in such an environment, and that means that investment will be frozen for weeks, if not months, and a recession becomes ever more likely.
That is one imminent danger. Another is the way that the market contagion has spread from industrial and resources stocks to the banks, with the obvious worry that the trade recession will soon be joined by its evil twin, a credit crunch. As confidence drains from the world economy, companies are nervous about investing, banks are reluctant to lend, and savers will turn to safer havens than equities. Historically, such security was offered by the United States dollar; now, perhaps, not so much.
One of the great ironies in Mr Trump’s plan to boost the American economy is that, within a fairly short time, he will have plunged it into such a slump that he will need to take emergency measures to rescue it – tax cuts, and increasing the US budget deficit to pay for it. The Federal Reserve may find it has no alternative but to cut interest rates – usually a welcome move, but in this case merely proof of the disaster the Trump administration is inflicting on its people.
The net result may be stagflation: above-target increases while economic activity stagnates. It is analogous to what a combination of the Brexit shock and the reckless Truss experiment that crashed the UK economy in 2022 would do. It is that bad.
What can the authorities, including in the United States, do to prevent a slump? Unlike in 2008 and 2020, for example, in most Western economies, there is far less scope for borrowing at sustainable interest rates to support the economy.
In 2008, when Gordon Brown was prime minister and had to nationalise most of the British banking sector, the UK national debt-to-GDP ratio stood at about 36 per cent. By the time Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were faced with closing down the economy in 2020, it was 85 per cent. It now stands at 95 per cent, and trending higher.
If the present chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has barely enough fiscal headroom to keep to her fiscal rules, she will have to find some convincing explanations about the much more onerous costs of nursing Britain through what we may soon be calling “the Trump Slump”. That, of course, is not even accounting for the real cost of deterring Vladimir Putin and helping to defend Europe (that being another direct consequence of Mr Trump’s election).
Much the best move, and one still hoped for, is that Mr Trump accepts the manifold and genuine offers of constructive negotiations he’s had from world leaders, declares an early “victory” for his tactics, and announces a 90-day moratorium during which new, freer trade deals can be reached across the world.
It would be good news for all. The markets would calm, American voters would no longer fear opening their pension fund statements, and Mr Trump might turn his mess into a miracle of trade liberalisation.
The dangers if President Trump does press on with his mercantilist “medicine” for America are too gruesome to contemplate. At times such as this, what else is there other than optimism?