Informing the development of a fathers’ and partners’ pathway in perinatal mental health

NHS England has committed to mental health assessment and signposting for the partners of women involved with perinatal mental health services. This article describes a service development initiative involving a consultation event to inform the development of a fathers’ and partners’ pathway in a perinatal mental health service in the north of England. The consultation event used a coproduction approach. Four focus groups, comprising mothers who were service users, partners/ fathers, professionals and stakeholders, generated a range of ideas for the pathway and produced a list of questions fathers and partners would like to be asked when talking about their well-being. The focus groups felt that preparing couples for the possibility of perinatal mental health issues during the antenatal period could be beneficial. This article will be useful for perinatal mental health services planning to develop their work with new fathers and partners of their service users.