EDP: ‘Unforgivable’ – Mental health trust allowed court hospital order to expire

Jessica Frank-Keyes, Local Democracy reporter of the Eastern Daily Press, writes: Paperwork errors at Norfolk’s mental health trust have risen by more than a third in the past year, it has emerged. The Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has seen mistakes in sectioning – involuntary hospitalisation – paperwork increase by 36pc in the […]

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EDP: Mental health trust blasted for ‘shocking’ fresh rise in out of area placements

Jessica Frank-Keyes of the Eastern Daily Press reports: The region’s mental health trust has been criticised for a “shocking” lack of beds as data revealed a fresh rise in patients being sent out of the area for treatment. Figures published by the region’s mental health trust – branded the worst in England – uncovered yet

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Report reveals mental health trust ‘culture of bullying’ as public excluded from meeting

Jessica Frank-Keyes of the Eastern Daily Press reports: The region’s mental health trust has been criticised for discussing in private a report into its staff culture of “bullying and lack of respect” – at a meeting meant to be open to the public. That says it all really, doesn’t it? Exclusion demonstrates the contempt of

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EDP: Opinion: Why we wanted to get hold of emails from NHS’ communications bosses

Tom Bristow of the Eastern Daily Press explains: I have been writing about problems at our mental health service for this newspaper since 2012. In that time, I have sat through inquests of those let down by the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) and interviewed many grieving and angry families. I’ve also followed the

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EDP: ‘Fobbed off’: Family of grandmother attacked in care home hits out at mental health trust

Tom Bristow of the Eastern Daily Press reports: The son of a dementia patient who died after she was attacked in a care home says he feels “fobbed off” by a promised investigation into her death. The Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) told the family of Doreen Livermore in January that it was

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EDP: Young people face five month waiting lists for mental health support

Jessica Frank-Keyes of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Children and young people with mental health issues are waiting up to five months for treatment in parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. Adolescents with mental health conditions in Great Yarmouth and Waveney are facing waiting lists for mental health support ranging from a week to access urgent

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EDP: ‘Got away with it’ – NHS manager gloated about coverage of dead great-grandmother

Tom Bristow of the Eastern Daily Press reports: An NHS manager bragged that the service had “got away” with its failings being highlighted after the death of two dementia sufferers – because former Monty Python star Terry Jones had died. The Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) was criticised in an investigation into the death

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EDP: Revealed: People waiting more than a DAY for emergency mental health treatment

Emily Townsend reports: Patients in mental health crisis are still waiting more than four hours to be seen in an emergency – with the longest delays going beyond an entire day. More than one in four ’emergency referrals’ in Suffolk and Norfolk (26%), were not assessed within four hours in September, according to the trust.

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EDP: Improving figures, but mental health campaigners say more needs to be done or ‘expect more deaths’

Donna-Louise Bishop of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Campaigners for better mental health provisions say more needs to be done to protect the regions’s most vulnerable patients from being sent hundreds of miles away for treatment. It comes following a meeting of the board of directors for Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), in

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EDP: Revealed: How mental health patients are being sent to failing private hospital

Geraldine Scott of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) sent 21 patients to Kneesworth House, in Royston, over the last year and on Tuesday it was revealed how Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors found dirty wards and “uncaring and disrespectful” staff at Hertfordshire unit, as well as Priory Hospital Blandford

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EDP: Is this in the public interest? Man who attempted suicide in hospital car park is taken to court

Peter Walsh of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Campaigners have criticised a decision to prosecute a man experiencing mental health problems who lay down in front of vehicles at a Norfolk hospital in an attempt to kill himself. The 40-year-old man, who we have decided not to name, lay down in front of two buses

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EDP: ‘The system is broken’ – emergency mental health 999 incidents double

Dominic Gilbert of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Urgent mental health-related incidents attended by police officers have almost doubled in four years as pressures on the 999 service grow. Coinciding with the ‘radical redesign’ and ruthless cuts to mental health community, crisis and home treatment teams and beds; the closure of assertive outreach and homeless

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EDP: Children and young people with mental ill health ‘slipped through the net’ as staff were forced to make own waiting lists

Geraldine Scott of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Staff working in children and young people’s mental health were forced to make their own waiting lists as official data was so inaccurate and cases “slipped through the net”. Those were the findings of a report into services provided by the region’s mental health trust when inspectors

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EDP: Campaigners protesting against lack of mental health services in north Norfolk

David Bale of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Protestors gathered on Cromer pier today and carried placards and banners to highlight the number of people affected by mental health issues. Even in the appalling weather, about eighty people attended the protest. The protest follows a number of suicides by young people in north Norfolk. Jenna

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Audio: BBC Radio Norfolk: Campaign spokesperson interviewed by Nick Conrad about Beds Crisis and Mental Health Meltdown at NSFT

For those who missed this interview on BBC Radio Norfolk, you can now listen by clicking on the audio bar below:

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EDP Front Page: Mental health patients in ‘acute distress’ STILL sent miles away five years after pledge to end practice

Geraldine Scott of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Scores of mental health patients in “acute distress” were sent out of Norfolk and Suffolk for care – despite five years of promises that the practice would end. With services bursting at the seams, 82 people from the two counties were shipped away from their homes and

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Press release: Campaign investigation into the deeply-flawed Mental Health Strategy written by BCG for Norfolk and Waveney STP: Part I

We have already expressed our concerns about the Norfolk and Waveney STP’s Mental Health Strategy. Now, our worst fears have been confirmed. Whilst the Mental Health Strategy contains some fine words, it has little concrete information about the future of mental health services. Worryingly, the Mental Health Strategy was not co-produced with service users and

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EDP: Campaigners ask where mental health nurses will come from under new GP surgery plan

Geraldine Scott of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Concerns have been raised over where mental health nurses to be placed in doctors’ surgeries are going to come from amid a shortage in the profession. A £500,000 review into Norfolk and Waveney’s health system identified that 127 mental health staff would be needed to work in

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The Guardian: Nuwan Dissanayaka: Jamie is psychotic and won’t go outside. Mental health services are failing him

This article from Nuwan Dissanayaka needs to be read by everybody with an interest in mental health. Dr. Dissanayaka is really worth following on Twitter. We’re delighted Nuwan’s views are getting wider attention in the national press. Dr. Dissanayaka is the consultant psychiatrist in the Assertive Outreach team in Leeds. Of course, assertive outreach at

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Press Release: Campaign statement on the scandalous NHS Digital data exposing the mental health beds crisis at NSFT

A spokesperson for the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk said: “It is scandalous that, despite many promises to stop the transportation of people in mental health crisis many miles away from families, friends and professionals they know, the situation has become much worse.” “The inhumanity of transporting people, of all

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