EDP: Mother of Norwich patient says son with schizophrenia could have been saved and blasts mental health services

Tom Bristow of the Eastern Daily Press reports: The last time Sheila Preston saw her son alive was Christmas 2014. Almost two years later, two police officers knocked on her door at 1.30am at her home in Mendham on the Norfolk-Suffolk border. They had come to tell her Leo had been found dead in his […]

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Video: BBC iPlayer: Panorama: Revealed: Britain’s Mental Health Crisis

One month after prime minister Theresa May promised to ‘transform the way we deal with mental health problems right across society’, reporter Sophie Hutchinson investigates the troubled state of NHS mental health services. She hears the concerns of staff and patients at the first mental health trust in England to be placed in special measures,

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Radical Redesign Heroes: Where are the TSSers now? Part 5: Kathy Chapman, Operations Director, NSFT

Kathy Chapman was the Director of Operations of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) and the self-proclaimed architect of the Trust Service Strategy (TSS), otherwise known as the ‘radical redesign’, until her ‘promotion‘ in July 2014. The ‘radical redesign’ was condemned by the King’s Fund in the Health Service Journal (HSJ) and is widely regarded

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Campaign speaking at Keep Our NHS Public meeting on Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs): Friday 11th November, Blackfriars Hall, Norwich, NR3 1AU at 6.30 p.m. All welcome.

Members of our campaign will be speaking at the Keep Our NHS Public meeting on Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) on Friday 11th November at Blackfriars Hall, Norwich, NR3 1AU  6.30 – 8.30 p.m. Why not come along and listen? We are non-party political. We will happily to accept invitations from all mainstream political parties

Campaign speaking at Keep Our NHS Public meeting on Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs): Friday 11th November, Blackfriars Hall, Norwich, NR3 1AU at 6.30 p.m. All welcome. Read More »

EADT: Protest at Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust AGM over unexpected patient deaths data

Gemma Mitchell of the East Anglian Daily Times reports: Campaigners have demanded answers and greater transparency from mental health bosses over a “shocking” rise in unexpected patient deaths in Suffolk and Norfolk. Bereaved families, carers, patients and NHS staff were among the protesters who yesterday attended the annual general meeting (AGM) of the trust that

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Deaths Crisis: Is NSFT the mental health Mid Staffs?

A Campaign spokesperson said: “The decision of the Board of NSFT to remove the number of unexpected deaths from its Annual Report and Accounts 2015-16 is disgraceful. The number of NSFT patients dying unexpectedly increased by thirteen per cent in 2015-16 and continues to do so. Since April 2012, at least 572 NSFT patients have

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Deaths Crisis: Unexpected deaths denial continues at NSFT

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has published its papers for the Board of Directors meeting on Thursday 22nd September 2016. The papers contain the Quality Report for the NSFT Board prepared by Michelle Allott, Deputy Director of Nursing at NSFT. The report states: Overall, the number of SIs over the past two years

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Deaths Crisis: Michael Scott’s misleading claims to Norfolk’s Health Committee about the Verita report

The Chief Executive of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), Michael Scott, told Norfolk County Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) that our campaign was involved in the drafting and agreed to the terms of reference of the Verita investigation. This is untrue and we told the HOSC it is untrue. Here are

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EDP: Graphic – The large rise in the number of patients dying unexpectedly at the NSFT

In 2012-13, 7.3 patients of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) died unexpectedly each month. Each and every year since, the number of patients of NSFT dying unexpectedly has increased significantly. Our campaign was founded in 2013 by staff concerned about unnecessary deaths as a result of the cuts and chaos of the radical

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In NSFT’s words: ‘reduction of approximately 135 whole time equivalents (-3%) across all staff groups’

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) is busy denying its own plans for ‘Putting People First’ now that they have become public. Here is what the Board of NSFT wrote in its own Annual Operational Plan 2016-17 in April 2016 to its regulator, Monitor: Over any year we anticipate our staff numbers to change,

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BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust to cut 90 posts

Nikki Fox and Nic Rigby of the BBC report: An NHS trust caring for mentally ill people in Norfolk and Suffolk which was placed in special measures by a care watchdog, is planning to cut 90 posts. The Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust wants to cut its deficit from £8.9m in 2015-16 to £6.1m in

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EADT: NSFT curtailing psychiatric liaison services (PLS) in hospitals “without warning or consultation”

Andrew Hirst of the East Anglian Daily Times reports shocking news: Labour has joined calls demanding more money be made available for mental health services in Suffolk, warning that reported cuts of £200,000 will have “severe consequences” for sufferers in the county. Sarah Adams, Labour’s health spokeswoman, said the cuts in provision were “disappointing to

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Daily Mail: Parents whose fashion student son, 21, died five days after being released from a mental health unit say police failed to tell them when they found him ‘staring over the side of a bridge’

Keiligh Baker of the Daily Mail reports: The parents of a student who took his own life just five days after being released from a psychiatric unit are ‘distraught’ that police and health staff failed to alert them to his mental state. Henry Curtis-Williams was detained by police under the Mental Health Act after he was

Daily Mail: Parents whose fashion student son, 21, died five days after being released from a mental health unit say police failed to tell them when they found him ‘staring over the side of a bridge’ Read More »

Kept in the Dark: Daily Gazette: ‘inquest… to be adjourned after finding out the professions of two NHS workers were not as they had understood.”

The Daily Gazette and Essex County Standard reports: AN inquest into the sudden death of a teenager has been adjourned as new information has come to light. Harriet Philo-Powell died suddenly aged 18 at the end of February. Miss Philo-Powell’s family, who live in Bulmer, near Halstead, asked for the inquest into her death to

Kept in the Dark: Daily Gazette: ‘inquest… to be adjourned after finding out the professions of two NHS workers were not as they had understood.” Read More »

Kept in the Dark: Should we expect the ‘independent inquiry’ into unexpected deaths at NSFT to be a whitewash?

The ‘independent inquiry’ into unexpected deaths at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) is being published on Thursday, 26th May 2016 at the NSFT board meeting at Hellesdon Hospital, Norwich. The board meeting starts at 0930. Why not join us? So, should we expect a whitewash? Well, sadly, given our previous experience of being

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Gallery: March for Mental Health, King’s Lynn

Today, members of the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk from throughout East Anglia joined local people from West Norfolk to protest against the closure of one quarter of the remaining acute mental health beds in West Norfolk at the Fermoy Unit in King’s Lynn and to highlight the threat to

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EDP: Protesters in King’s Lynn fight against mental health service cuts

Sophie Biddle of the EDP reports: More than 100 campaigners pounded the pavements from The Walks and through the town centre before finishing outside the Majestic Cinema to hear speeches. The protest was triggered by the Fermoy Centre, an in-patient NHS facility for mental health, facing closure. Beth Anthony, 18 of Dersingham, is youth officer

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EDP: Last mental health inpatient unit in West Norfolk closes to new admissions

Nicholas Carding of the EDP reports: Mental health patients in West Norfolk who need acute treatment face being sent to Norwich or further for a hospital bed after bosses closed the last remaining unit to new admissions. But a spokesman for the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk described the situation

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BBC News: Trust’s plan to avoid ‘media traps’ scrapped

Nic Rigby of the BBC reports: A failing mental health trust has scrapped plans insisting governors do not talk to journalists without consulting it first, in case they say “things they don’t mean”. The Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust proposals said there was a danger some of them could be “trapped” by leading questions from

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BBC News: Investigation of mental health deaths in Norfolk and Suffolk to report in May

The BBC reports: An NHS trust caring for mentally ill people in Norfolk and Suffolk is to carry out an independent review of unexplained deaths. Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has appointed Verita to examine how the deaths are dealt with. The trust had 129 such deaths in 2014-15 – up from 61

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