A HUSBAND has called on the health secretary Andrew Lansley to start an investigation into the NHS treatment of his dead wife.

Chris Bingley’s wife Joanne Bingley, 39, was suffering from severe postnatal depression (PND) when she killed herself by stepping in front of a train near to Deighton Railway Station.

Mr Bingley from Fartown claims his wife was failed by the local NHS – which he claims is ignoring international guidelines on PND treatment and is accountable for her death.

The father – who now is a single parent to 18-month-old daughter Emily – has written to Mr Lansley MP asking him to hold an investigation.

He claims Mrs Bingley’s PND was so severe that she should have been offered care in a hospital instead of having to cope at home.

And he says he was given no advice or support as her main carer.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has a list of standards that NHS organisations are “expected to meet”.

One of these standards states that if depression is severe doctors should refer patients to a mental health team and, occasionally, admission to hospital may be needed.

NHS policy and standards guidance also says that seriously ill women whose needs cannot be met by primary care will require the assistance of specialist perinatal psychiatric services and sometimes admission to a specialist mother and baby psychiatric unit.

Mr Bingley says his wife was never informed of or given access to specialist perinatal psychiatric services – and claims if she had been she wouldn’t have killed herself back in April last year.