UPDATED: Deaths Crisis: Whitewash Protest: NSFT AGM, IP-City Centre, 1 Bath Street, Ipswich, IP2 8SD on Thursday 20 October at 2 p.m.

UPDATE: For campaigners travelling by train from Norwich, why not join us on the 1200 train to Ipswich? Meet outside the Norwich train station ticket office at 1145.

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has seen the number of unexpected deaths of people in its care more than double from around seven per month in 2012-13 to seventeen per month in this current year. This year, there will be at least one hundred more deaths than only four years ago.

Enough is enough. No more cuts, no more discrimination, no more deaths.

The Board of NSFT needs to stop its smoke, mirrors, excuses and denials and face the consequences of the chaos and cuts of its disastrous radical redesign.

NSFT still has on its Board the director who demanded our questions about rising unexpected deaths be struck from the Board’s minutes more than two years ago.

Commissioners at the CCGs need to accept their culpability and fund mental health services properly.

If NSFT had been funded like the largest physical health trust in Norfolk and Suffolk, it would have a budget nearly £70m higher than it does today. This is the reality of ‘parity of esteem’.

The Chair of a CCG told a campaign supporter that mental health could ‘forget about any more money because we’ve got more important things to spend it on.’ That is discrimination.

There is a mental health Mid-Staffs taking place in our midst. It is a catastrophe.

Would an increase of 134 per cent in unexpected deaths be tolerated outside mental health? That is stigma.

We’ve had enough of the NHS Blame Game.

The NHS establishment has decided that NSFT has been on the naughty step for as long as it can be and NSFT will be released from Special Measures but the huge mental health funding gap has not been addressed. How can NHS Improvement look at the chart above and claim that mental health services have improved for families across Norfolk and Suffolk?

Mental health services need decent funding.

The number of deaths must be reduced.

Please join us at NSFT’s AGM at IP-City Centre, 1 Bath Street, Ipswich, IP2 8SD on Thursday 20 October at 2 p.m.and help us show the NSFT Board that its repeated attempts to whitewash over the ever-increasing number of unexpected deaths are unacceptable.

We know the meeting is on a Thursday afternoon but this couldn’t be more important: lives are at stake.

Please spread the word. We’re expecting a media presence.

We can help with lifts and transport costs if these are a problem. Get in touch if you need help.

Let’s join together to demand decent mental health services.

Here is a location map: