EDP: Mental health trust’s pledge to eradicate out of area placements by 2021

Geraldine Scott of the Eastern Daily Press reports: The region’s mental health trust has pledged to eradicate the use of out of area beds by 2021. Oh dear. That’s three years away, a national target and seven years after commissioners’ original promise to end the use of out of area beds before the end of […]

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EDP: New mental health beds to be opened for children and young people

Geraldine Scott of the Eastern Daily Press reports: New mental health beds for children and young people are set to open in the region after a review found current services were not enough. At long last! We’ve been saying this should happen for more than four years. Commissioners, including the newly-imposed CEO of NSFT, Antek

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EDP: Mental health boss brands rejection of funding as ‘utterly indefensible’ as governors raise concern over recruitment figures

Gemma Mitchell of the Eastern Daily Press reports: A mental health boss has hit out and branded it ‘utterly indefensible’ that a bid for more than £5m which would be used to address safety concerns was snubbed by the government. We understand that the Improvement Director, imposed upon Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT)

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EADT: Suffolk patient moved 150 miles to Derbyshire mental health unit following Lark Ward closure

Gemma Mitchell of the East Anglian Daily Times reports: A Suffolk father is facing a six-hour round trip to visit his vulnerable son following the closure of a vital mental health unit in Ipswich. A Stowmarket man whose 20-year-old son is a patient on Lark Ward, based in the grounds of Ipswich Hospital, has spoken

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Healthwatch Suffolk condemns service user and carer engagement at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT)

Healthwatch Suffolk comments on the announcement of the closure of the Suffolk PICU by Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT): Healthwatch Suffolk note with serious concern the news that the Lark Ward, a psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) run by Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) at Woodlands, will close from Friday 6th April

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Audio: BBC Radio Norfolk: Matthew Gudgin interviews NSFT interim CEO Julie Cave and a campaigner about the closure of yet another 36 beds

Matthew Gudgin of the BBC interviews a spokesperson for our campaign and the interim Chief Executive of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), Julie Cave, about the closure of yet another 36 mental health beds in Norfolk and Suffolk. We are asked whether we have any confidence in the newly-appointed Chief Executive of NSFT,

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BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health beds closures ‘shocking’

The BBC reports: Thirty-six mental health beds are being closed by Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, eight of them permanently. Further details have emerged after it was revealed a mental health ward in Ipswich would be temporarily shut. The trust said the closures “were in the best interests of patients”. But the Campaign to

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EADT: ‘This is a humanitarian disaster’ – Mental health trust closes 36 beds

Gemma Mitchell of the East Anglian Daily Times reports: The region’s beleaguered mental health trust has had to shut 36 beds since autumn, it has been revealed. Beds have closed in Ipswich, Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. At least eight of the bed closures are permanent. Service users and carers and their organisations received little

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EDP: Norfolk clinical commissioning group one of just nine in England to miss mental health investment target as suicide rates soar

Geraldine Scott of the Eastern Daily Press reports: One of Norfolk’s clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) is due to fall short of the amount of money it should be putting towards mental health despite latest figures showing the number of suicides in the area has rocketed. Research from the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) has shown

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CAMHS Crisis: BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk NHS mental health facility has empty beds

Nikki Fox of the BBC reports: Mental health campaigners are “incredulous” five beds for children are unused when 20 patients are being treated “out of the area”. Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) created a 12-bed unit in Lowestoft, costing £1m, in September. NHS England said it provides funding to staff seven of the

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Fiscal Fantasy Island: NSFT spends over half its Out Of Trust Acute (OOA) Beds budget in first two months of the year

The number of out of trust acute (OOA) bed days has nearly doubled: from 332 days in April 2016 to 647 days in May 2016. Most of these patients are being sent to the expensive, remote and private Mundesley Hospital, where it seems that none of the medical staff have passed the exams of the Royal

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EADT: Will new children’s mental health unit in Suffolk solve ‘deeply troubling’ problem of young people in adult wards?

In another example of first-class investigative journalism, Andrew Hirst of the East Anglian Daily Times reports: Campaigners have welcomed plans for a new mental health unit for children in Suffolk after it emerged concerning numbers of young people from the region had been sent to adult wards – a practice described by one mother as

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EDP: Union backs Mental Health Watch campaign – and highlights ongoing concerns in Norfolk and Suffolk

David Powles of the EDP reports: Bosses of the trust used their recent AGM to proclaim of turning a corner, but Ms Corlett says while some things have improved – there’s a long way to go before staff feel that is the case. She explained: “A lot of staff still feel angry about how change

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Gallery: Slides from Public Meeting: What is happening at NSFT? Do we still need a campaign?

You can view the presentation in the Gallery below or download the slides as a pdf to view offline, distribute or print.   The sources of the employment data are the various Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Annual Report and Accounts published between 2011 and 2015. The sources of the Serious Incident (SI)

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EDP: Four-fold increase in bill to send mental health patients out of the region

The Eastern Daily Press reports: A lack of beds and increased demand led to a four-fold increase in the cost of sending people with mental health problems outside of Norfolk and Suffolk in 2014/15. When a bed on a ward is not available for people who need it in the region they are sent elsewhere

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Express and Star: Mental health patient spent 64 HOURS in police custody because there were no NHS beds in the country

The country has run out of mental health beds after the closure of more than two thousand NHS beds. The Express and Star reports: A mental health patient spent 64 hours in police custody, taking 22 officers off the streets and costing taxpayers’ £20,000 – because there were no available NHS beds in the entire country.

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In NSFT’s words: Cuts not patient care drove early closure of Carlton Court beds

The premature discharge of patients and closure of Waveney Acute Services at Carlton Court, breaking the promise made by commissioners and Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), was driven by the desire to save money in the Cost Improvement Programme (CIP is an NHS euphemism for cuts), not patient care, as this internal NSFT

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EDP: Anger as Suffolk adult mental health unit closes

David Powles of the EDP exclusively reports: Campaigners fear even more adult mental health patients will have to be sent outside of the region, after it was confirmed a unit to treat them in had been closed down. Yesterday, health bosses confirmed the remaining two patients had been transferred to the nearby Northgate Hospital in

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Fiscal Fantasy Island: NSFT spends record £2.42 million on temporary staff as out of area bed days nearly double

Having wasted £17.25 million of taxpayers’ money getting rid of staff it needed, Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) spent nearly £2.5 million on temporary staff in May alone. This is a new record, even for NSFT. 68 per cent of this expenditure was on expensive agency staff and the reliance on temporary staff

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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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