EDP: Heartbroken family say Norfolk teenager received poor mental health care

More high quality reporting from David Powles into the treatment, or lack of treatment, of Kieran Fulcher on the front page of the EDP. Why does the press have to do the job of our politicians and NHS bureaucracy, just as it had to at Mid Staffs? The upper echelons of the NHS behave as […]

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BBC News: Mental health crisis care ‘inadequate’

Nick Triggle of the BBC reports: People who need urgent mental health care in England are receiving inadequate support, regulators say. The Care Quality Commission reviewed the help given to people in mental health crisis, which includes people who are suicidal, having serious panic attacks or psychotic episodes. The regulator said the system was “struggling

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Video: BBC News Exclusive Investigation – ‘Firefighting to keep patients alive’

‘Unprecedented failings’: ‘Firefighting to Keep Patients Alive’ An exclusive investigation of the crisis in mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk on the national News at Six and Ten on BBC1 and the BBC News channel. Isn’t it shameful that the Board of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), led by a Chief Executive

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In NSFT’s words: BBC Six O’Clock News tonight on ‘redundancies, improvement programme, staff shortages, our financial position, and the disbanding of the Assertive Outreach Team’

From: NSFT Communications Subject: BBC broadcast on Trust being placed into special measures Dear colleagues, The BBC One 6 O’Clock News is scheduled to be broadcasting a story this evening (Tuesday, 2 June) about our Trust being placed into ‘special measures’ by the regulator, Monitor, following the inspection of our services by the Care Quality Commission

In NSFT’s words: BBC Six O’Clock News tonight on ‘redundancies, improvement programme, staff shortages, our financial position, and the disbanding of the Assertive Outreach Team’ Read More »

BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust: Children in adult wards ‘unacceptable’

Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Chair, Gary Page, blames NHS England. NSFT Director of Nursing, Jane Sayer, blames ‘trends’. NSFT Chief Executive, Michael Scott, blames NHS England. The NSFT Board again tries to portray itself yet again as victim not villain but forgets to mention that the NSFT Board was happy to take

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BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health funding plan prompts dispute

Nic Rigby of the BBC reports: Cash for future mental health provision in Norfolk and Suffolk has “fallen short” of what is needed, prompting a dispute with an NHS trust and a funder. Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust said funding offered by central Norfolk clinical commissioning groups (CCG) does not meet the “volume of demand”.

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Newsflash: File on 4: Minding the Gap: Mental healthcare on BBC Radio 4 at 8 p.m. on 19th May 2015

We’re working hard to bring the crisis in mental health services at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) to national attention. The crisis isn’t over. The CCGs and NSFT promised there would be no out of area placements beyond April 2014. That promise broken, there is now a dangerous Waiting List of Shame to

Newsflash: File on 4: Minding the Gap: Mental healthcare on BBC Radio 4 at 8 p.m. on 19th May 2015 Read More »

Guardian: ‘System failure’ of NHS mental health services puts pressure on A&E wards

Haroon Siddique of the Guardian reports: Large numbers of people with mental health issues are ending up in A&E wards because of “system failure”, according to leaked minutes of a government-attended steering group. The meeting heard that people with mental illness are presenting themselves at emergency wards because of inadequate provision for them in the

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EDP: Troubled mental health service to get help from Nottingham

Tom Bristow of the EDP reports: Monitor, which placed the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) in special measures in February, has arranged for staff from Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to improve services and staffing levels in Norfolk and Suffolk. Monitor said in a statement: “Access to this advice and expertise will enable Norfolk

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EDP: Norfolk children’s services boss reveals ‘scandal’ over mental health beds for young people

More important campaigning journalism from our local newspaper, the EDP: Norfolk’s children’s services boss has revealed a lack of available mental health beds for youngsters meant she had to create a makeshift unit in a children’s home, so a 17-year-old could get desperately needed care. And Sheila Lock said a 13-year-old spent a weekend in

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Community Care: Mental health trust funding down 8% from 2010 despite coalition’s drive for parity of esteem

Norman Lamb called our campaign ‘mental health extremists‘ for simply pointing out that Norman Lamb claims to be a mental health champion whilst cutting mental health funding and services. Now the £600 million’s worth of Norman Lamb’s duplicity is clear for all to see. What kind of ‘drive for parity of esteem’ results in the

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Pay of Chief Executive of Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) increased by a quarter in the midst of mental health crisis

The average salary of staff at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) fell by £4,796 (18%) in just three years from £26,557 to £21,761 between 2011 and 2014. Mental health services were trashed as part of the failed ‘radical redesign’ which resulted in NSFT being rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Monitor

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Mind the Gap: Mental health charity Mind excludes election candidate, mental health service user and disability campaigner, Mick Hardy, from its mental health election panel

We’ve just receives this shocking press release from Mick Hardy, prospective parliamentary candidate in Norwich North for the Dandy Party and a founder member of the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk: Mental health charity Mind excludes election candidate, mental health service user and disability campaigner, Mick Hardy, from its mental

Mind the Gap: Mental health charity Mind excludes election candidate, mental health service user and disability campaigner, Mick Hardy, from its mental health election panel Read More »

Audio: BBC Radio Suffolk interviews campaign member about CQC report and CAMHS crisis

Listen to Anne Humphreys, a carer and campaign member, talking from personal experience about the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rating of inadequate and the crisis in mental health services at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), with a particular focus on services for children and young people (CAMHS):   Anne and Bec have started

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BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk health trust in special measures

Nic Rigby of the BBC reports: A mental health trust has become the first in England to be put in special measures. NHS regulator Monitor will send a team to take over the management of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. The decision comes after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) reported that the trust was

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EDP: Norfolk’s mental health service put in special measures

Tom Bristow of the EDP reports: Special measures will see the appointment of an “improvement director” to provide expertise and hold the trust to account, and arranging a partnership with a high-performing trust. Monitor has also imposed a new condition on NSFT’s licence, enabling the regulator to take further action, such as replacing members of

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Campaign Statement on Monitor putting NSFT into Special Measures

NSFT becoming the first mental health trust to be put into special measures was inevitable following the damning CQC inspection and the financial black hole. Our main concern is that service users and frontline staff are not made to pay the price of the NSFT Board’s wasted millions with further cuts to already inadequate services.

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Sunday Telegraph: Mental health in the NHS: ‘My son wanted to die; we begged for help but there was none’

When Linda Jones received a call from her distraught husband, one cold day in December 2008, to say that their beloved 17-year-old son, Matthew, had committed suicide in his bedroom, she was inconsolable, as any mother would be. But she was not surprised. The despair the Joneses feel at the state of Britain’s mental-health services

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EADT Editorial: A sad lesson in how to get it so very, very wrong

A sad lesson in how to get it so very, very wrong So, those who suggested the emperor was parading naked, and not clad in new finery, have been proved right. The very birth of the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust was accompanied by a chorus of warnings: about jobs; about finance; and – crucially – about care. Critics

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