Rosewood Mother and Baby Unit

This specialist inpatient unit provides support for new mothers with serious mental ill health from Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

Mothers are admitted with their babies and receive specialist perinatal mental health care and treatment from our specialist team. Our unit has been designed by mums, for mums and we have, as part of the multi professional team, mums with lived experience.

The service predominantly supports mothers from across Kent, Surrey and Sussex although will accept admissions from other areas of the country if bed availability is limited.

Our MBU offers assessment and treatment of the mother’s mental illness whilst ensuring the developing relationship with their baby.

The MBU Philosophy - “We believe in enabling and empowering mothers in all stages of their perinatal journey in collaboration with their families”.

It’s vital that referrals are made appropriately so please be aware of the referral process and criteria.

Protecting our patients

The protection of our patients and staff is a priority. We ask you to speak with the ward manager or person in charge of your loved ones care to discuss how you can stay in contact. We have introduced video messaging and telephone contact is available to everyone who needs it.

Please contact the ward or unit manager to discuss further. Thank you for your co-operation.

For more information please click here

Our team

The MBU’s experienced team includes a range of clinical and non clinical staff who provide specialist support during every part of a mum’s recovery.

This includes nursery nurses, registered nurses, health care assistants, a clinical psychologist, social workers, peer support practitioners, a consultant psychiatrist, specialty grade Dr, house-keeping staff and occupational therapists.

For professionals

We understand that you may need to speak to us about your referral and are happy to answer any questions. Please speak to Angela Shorter, Perinatal Service Manager in the first instance.

Assessment for admission to the MBU will be either by the Perinatal Outreach Service, mental health crisis/community team or by the specialist Community Perinatal Mental Health Services.

Pregnant women in the last trimester who are assessed to be very high risk and women within the first year post-partum, who are either currently experiencing or have a history of:

Bipolar illness
Post-partum psychosis and other psychoses
Severe affective disorder and other serious non psychotic conditions
Antenatal and postnatal anxiety disorders impacting on pregnancy and childbirth such as tokophobia, OCD and PTSD arising from childbirth
Mothers experiencing bonding disorders
Pregnant and post-partum women over the age of 16. Mothers under the age of 18 will be admitted if there is significant perinatal mental illness and they are likely to be the baby’s principal carer. The admission will be managed in collaboration with the local Children and Young People’s Service (CYP) and Social Services.

Meet the manager

Your feedback is important to the team so that we can continue to improve our services.

You can feedback directly to Angela Shorter, Perinatal Service Manager, to share your experiences and let her know how they are doing as a care group.

To arrange a meeting please email angelashorter@nhs.net