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 add to the Map of Shame. Last week, a dozen older people were waiting for out of area beds, as were at least six young people. 22 people were in out of area beds across the country even after twelve beds reopened on Thurne Ward and before the planned closure of adult beds at Carlton Court. Further cuts and chaos are planned for demoralised community teams with the introduction of the new IAPT+ contract which will see cash diverted away from the most in need and further disruption to continuity of care. The CCGs continue to refuse to fund mental health adequately but spend a fortune on commissioning and their own salaries.

The shameful cuts to mental health services made by duplicitous Norman ‘mental health champion’ Lamb and the Coalition are a national scandal.

The politicians, commissioners, CCGs, NHS England, trusts and Department of Health blame each other but nobody takes responsibility for the mental health crisis.

The £175,000 per year Chief Executive of NSFT, Michael Scott, is trying to hide the impact of the cuts and incompetence at NSFT.

An unholy trinity of further cuts planned for mental health care (exposed by our campaign’s research), social care and local authority budgets will lead to yet more misery and deaths across the country.

If you care about mental health, listen to File on 4: Minding the Gap: Mental healthcare on Radio 4 on Tuesday 19th May at 8 p.m.

Afterwards, comment below or join us on Twitter @NSFTCrisis and Facebook and tell us and the rest of the country what you think.

Minding the Gap: Mental Healthcare

 

Mental health services are facing a period of unprecedented change. The Department of Health has committed itself to reducing the disparity between spending on physical and mental illness, and a new payment system means services will be funded differently in the future. In the meantime there are concerns that vulnerable patients are dying because of pressures to release them from hospital too quickly, and a failure to provide adequate support in the community.

Can a new focus on what has traditionally been dubbed a ‘Cinderella service’ reverse the impact of years of cuts?

Reporter: Adrian Goldberg
Producer: Gail Champion

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