Reaction to the management ‘radical restructure’ and return of Amy Eagle as Deputy Chief Operating Officer of NSFT

Here is just some of the feedback we have received:

Closing services, discharging SUs, cutting care, death rate rises. Recognise it? Radical redesign in case you’ve forgotten. Carers and SUs can’t ever forget or forgive

That appointment is shocking, they don’t seem to be taking seriously the risk to life of these decisions, we are human beings not just ‘service users’ I can only imagine the state of community teams, they were staggeringly awful last September and have only seemed to get worse since from what I’ve seen.

I am utterly stunned. Could not have made worse appointments. If you looked at the candidates and selected the worst, this would be it. Drawing lots would have produced better results. Everything’s set for the return of Kathy Chapman.

It is truly terrible and it is only the start. The rest of the appointments are equally bad. It is going to be hell. I am going to have to look at options in private hospitals which is against everything I believe in, but I do not see how I can stay.

Last night I was out with X and she had just told me this shocking news! Absolutely dreadful and as you say you couldn’t make it up. These people never get their comeuppance, are lessons never learnt by the Trust? Bumped into A, B and C at Waitrose this morning. All were saying no one wants to stay with the Trust!

When other managers challenged Amy on redundancies she said it was a good opportunity to clear out “dead wood” and those she perceived as resistant to change. What a way to describe experienced and skilled clinicians who were raising concerns about the radical redesign and impact on patient safety, lack of evidence base and massively under estimated caseloads.

Many of those made redundant provided clinical supervision to less experienced colleagues.

Strange the way Amy Eagle is best friends with the Head of HR at NSFT, goes on holiday with her and then gets this hugely well-paid job despite her track record. What a coincidence.

Not only is this appointment shocking but as a Carer it is deeply frightening. We keep being asked to give NSFT the chance to improve but how can we do this when they show the same, flawed decision making and the people that will suffer will be our loved ones.

I lived through Amy’s tenure as service manager. I saw my colleagues cry daily over fear for their own futures and the destruction of the services they loved. I saw some of the best and most experienced staff seemingly chosen, by Amy, for voluntary redundancy because they were the most questioning of the safety of what was proposed. I saw people chosen for down banding, by Amy, crying because they felt they weren’t good enough, when all they had done was fail to produce the correct buzzwords in a 15 minute interview. Then, just as her role in this disaster was going to come out in the Alexander report, she left, while those who stayed continue to suffer the consequences to this day.

Now she is back on a massive salary. I can hardly believe it. It may be the final straw for me.

All this points to a central truth. You cannot legislate any organisation into productivity, especially when the resources required to perform the task (i.e beds&staff) are not being supplied. All NSFT seems to want to do is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic’s deck.

You really couldn’t make this stuff up. The problem is they’re not interested in listening to history so they’re going to keep on making the same mistakes. They make Westminster look like a well oiled machine…

Looks like it will be the complete end of any mental health support in Norfolk. Not that I get any now, too Complex for well-being services, not suicidal enough for crisis support.

I want to believe the Trust can get better and work with them to help turn things around but this news honestly makes me feel like giving up.

I am utterly devastated by the new Deputy COO appointment. I lived through the Redesign which was soul destroying. Not sure which is worse… reappointing an architect of this car crash or the fact she had the audacity to reapply to an organisation she had royally fucked up before buggering off to new pastures. No integrity. No shame.

So wrong to put front line staff through this. They need NEW leaders they can trust. The CQC cannot possibly think this is going to pull the NSFT out of Special Measures – the re-appointment of one of those who oversaw a downfall.

Truly shocking. Don’t recall being invited, along with other service users recently trained to be on interview panels, to be involved with this appointment. Not another case of being dumped in East London sooner rather than later?

Why aren’t Marie and Jonathan stepping in? Meanwhile Rome continues to burn…

Anyone who thinks it’s *nasty* to make the slightest criticism of reappointing people who have destroyed the morale & numbers of front line staff & put the lives of mental health sufferers in danger – needs to do their research.

What saddens me is reading things that were happening then & knowing I have heard the repeated as nothing has changed. The dilemma of stating how unacceptable things are for safety sake v the impact this has on staff morale and service user confidence is relevant now.

I think it illustrates corporate bs at it’s finest but unless you know the horrific reality of the redesign and the psychopathic way it was implemented, it possibly shows a person who is removed from reality rather than culpable. She looks pleasant and fluffy in it, when her behaviour was so much more cold. The fact she fucked off before facing the fall out is what offends me the most.

She was hugely complicit in it.

You have to be Kidding!!! she destroyed it back in 2014, WTF?

Don’t forget the system was also manipulated so that some people gained from redundancy payouts.

How totalling dispiriting for front line staff to have an adversarial creature reappointed in this way on a 90k salary. This is not solving the waiting list problem or deaths due to lack of availability of beds or follow-up care.

She’s hidden her twitter page from view, although it still proclaims her new job with NSFT. Wondering whether its valid for her to tout her profession and post on NSFT business yet restrict access to preferred readers? Either way, another example of NSFT blocking access to NSFT.

“Led by” ? No. You need qualities to be a LEADER. I thought NSFT couldn’t sink any lower but it still manages to surprise in the worst way possible.

I’m also not clear why NSFT had to go through such a managerial reorganisation. True, it’s been typical of NHS in past, but surely we’ve learnt that wholesale managerial reorganisation don’t necessarily solve problems.

Perhaps we do need to find out why NSFT needs deputy COO as well as COO.

The same issues keep being raised: people are self-harming due to long waiting times and lack of access to assessments and care-co so why MORE management in a structure that has more tiers than any other Foundation Trust? Answers on a Postcard.

It’s definitely a schoolboy error. Too much ambition, too little talent…

Err wouldn’t learning from mistakes be good? Instead of clearing the way for repetition? Had hoped for some care, compassion or just respect as human beings for SUs and Carers but clearly that was a pipe dream.

£90k+ what a joke. How many much needed mental health nurses we could have instead? And NSFT STILL wasting money on P4PP instead of beds in the area.

This woman destroyed any help I was getting.

There’s a lot of people wanting to support Marie to succeed. She needs a trustworthy team around her. I’m not going to comment on any individuals but as a general principle it’s not helpful to bring back any radical redesigners or bring in leaders from other inadequate trusts.

“Deputy Chief Operating Officer” – because that will drastically cut waiting times to see psychologists? Access crisis teams? Front line staff are needed, the ones that were *redesigned* not boomerang toxic bureaucrats

More money wasted at NSFT. New managers recycled despite proven incompetence. No care for SUs. What happened to the fresh start?

WTF this has made me feel sick. Really sad that those brainless morons actually believe the utter rubbish they’re droning on about. They’re so self obsessed they’re unable to see their role in increased deaths.

Why are NSFT bringing back ‘managers’ who have past precedent for overseeing the destruction of the mental health service instead of addressing the lack of front line staff????

The new senior leadership team don’t seem to have grasped the impact that reappointing ANY key players from the radical redesign era, will have upon the workers (who were treated like disposable components of a machine during that time). I don’t doubt new organisational values, but you must appoint NEW leaders. The trust is too broken to be salvaged without fresh blood.

This is a reminder of how experienced Band 6 ‘dead wood’ mental health nurses were treated under Amy Eagle’s ‘leadership’ while NSFT had hundreds of vacancies. Millions of pounds were wasted, careers and hearts were broken and mental health services were destroyed:

43 thoughts on “Reaction to the management ‘radical restructure’ and return of Amy Eagle as Deputy Chief Operating Officer of NSFT”

  1. You couldnt make it up . Yes dead wood was used to describe staff most likely to challenge . Redundancy / pension was indeed manipulated to benefit some individuals, often to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds . A crying shame . 

  2. The very fact that she is able to walk through the gates without even a blink gives you a big clue as to her ability to learn from all her massive mistakes and she displays no embarrassment, no shame, it is indeed very laughable, this appointment can only lead the NSFT further down the drain to total annihilation, staff should get out, but unfortunately the patients and carers will have to suffer, when does this nightmare end?  How did a Chief Exec allow this??? 

  3. Should be reported to NMC as unfit to practise. Surely her past incompetence could be taken into account. She would certainly insure this would happen to any other nurse who she was in charge of. In fact all those at top should be reported. Any other corporation would get rid of them at top. Where is there accountability. She never could accept anyone who disagreed with her. Even as a Manager at Norwich Clinic

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