Abstract BackgroundPerinatal mental health conditions affect up to 20% of women and the prevalence is growing. Within this, mild to moderate mental health conditions are poorly detected and often there is little or no support within the community. This leads to adverse maternal, child and family outcomes, significantly impacting wider society through heavy reliance and use of higher tier services, with associated time and cost implications. Aim To assess whether a community volunteer model cost-effectively improves outcomes for perinatal women and reduces future demand for services. MethodsPublic health has commissioned a leading family support charity, Home-Start, to train volunteers as perinatal health coaches for the Early Intervention Prevention Service. This service provides perinatal women with tailored, holistic support to improve their physical, emotional and social wellbeing. ResultsQuantitative and qualitative data analysis demonstrated a positive impact on mental health outcomes. An improvement in overall wellbeing, physical health and access to appropriate services and reduction in social isolation was seen for the perinatal women. Additionally, the health coaches gained essential skills in psycho-social coping strategies, communication and increased their confidence in dealing with perinatal mental health. With a reduced demand for specialist services, a cost benefit was also noted. A full evaluation of the service will be provided at the conference.ConclusionThe early identification and prevention of perinatal mental health problems is expected to have a positive holistic impact on patients, up-skill and enrich volunteers, and reduce expenditure for further services by reducing the specialist secondary care burden.