Carer’s letter to the Guardian: ‘Will it be my relative next?’

15th October 2015 Despite family pleas for appropriate treatment, a long term user of Norfolk’s mental health services cut her own throat today.  Visited by a Social worker yesterday, she was “placed on the waiting list for assessment under the Mental Health Act” because when last seen she was observed to be suffering harrowing hallucinations […]

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EDP: We’re at a turning point, says Norfolk and Suffolk mental health chief

David Powles of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Michael Scott, Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust chief executive, pledged at yesterday’s AGM it had learned from its mistakes and promised that high quality, safe services would become ‘the norm not the exception’. However, his promises have been met with apprehension from mental health campaigners, who say

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2nd November 2015: Norfolk 2nd Anniversary Public Meeting with Guest Speaker Owen Jones UEA LT1 1730-1930

Join us on Monday 2nd November 2015 for our second anniversary public meeting in Norfolk. Our meeting is taking place at the University of East Anglia in Lecture Theatre 1, 5.30-7.30 p.m. There is a location map below and you can download a campus map here. Our guest speaker is Owen Jones, influential thinker, newspaper

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EDP: ‘You seem to be a board that’s in denial’ – number of deaths rise at Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust

An internal investigation has been launched into mental health services in Suffolk and Norfolk after the number of patient deaths increased from 95 to 130 in a year. It means that the average number of deaths, including in accidents and suicides by people known to professionals to be living with a mental health disorder, has

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EADT: Number of deaths among Suffolk and Norfolk mental health patients rises by a third in one year

Ellis Barker of the East Anglian Daily Times reports: An internal investigation has been launched into mental health services in Suffolk and Norfolk after the number of patient deaths increased from 95 to 130 in a year. It means the average number of deaths, including in accidents and suicides by people known to professionals to

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A funeral every ten days: Campaign statement on the increase in deaths in the community

“Ours is a moral campaign, founded in November 2013 by mental health staff deeply concerned about cuts and service closures at NSFT and what they believed was a cluster of preventable deaths caused by the so-called ‘radical redesign’ process. Those brave staff have been joined by more than two thousand users of mental health services,

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BBC News: Concern at rise in mental health patient deaths

Nic Rigby of the BBC reports: The number of Norfolk and Suffolk mental health patient deaths has gone up from four to six a month between 2013 and 2015, it has been revealed. The 50% increase in the average number of deaths, excluding deaths by natural causes or those drug-related, goes before a trust meeting

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EDP: Eight areas of concern found at one ward in Norfolk hospital

Nicholas Carding of the Eastern Daily Press reports: The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found staff at Beach Ward, in Hammerton Court, Julian Hospital, Bowthorpe Road, Norwich, had carried out incomplete record-keeping, incomplete risk-assessments, and that there was a “poor compliance with mental capacity assessments.” Beach Ward, run by Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT),

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BBC News: NHS ‘had no mental health beds left’

Nikki Fox of the BBC reports on the meltdown in mental health services: An NHS trust was told there were no mental health beds available across England, its medical director has said. Dr Bohdan Solomka told the BBC on Sunday the lack of beds applied across the NHS and among private providers. This weekend, Norfolk

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EDP: Norfolk and Suffolk’s troubled mental health trust is not improving quickly enough

Nicholas Carding of the EDP reports: The region’s underfire mental health trust is not improving as quickly as hoped, according to a health watchdog’s leader for mental health. A letter seen by the EDP and Evening News, says the Care Quality Commission (CQC) are expecting to see “more progress at a quicker pace” from Norfolk

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EDP: Heartbroken family say Norfolk teenager received poor mental health care

More high quality reporting from David Powles into the treatment, or lack of treatment, of Kieran Fulcher on the front page of the EDP. Why does the press have to do the job of our politicians and NHS bureaucracy, just as it had to at Mid Staffs? The upper echelons of the NHS behave as

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EDP: Norwich MP calls on Prime Minister to intervene over secret mental health report

Norwich South MP Clive Lewis used his first outing at Prime Minister’s question time at lunchtime today to urge the release of the report into the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) which he said raised “serious questions about patient safety and care, due to cuts to services”. He told MPs that the “duty of

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Video: Clive Lewis MP raises Alexander Report into devastating cuts at NSFT with Prime Minister

“Norfolk and Suffolk NHS mental health trust which serves my constituency is refusing to publish the so called ‘Alexander Report’ into its operations. The report, which I’ve seen, raises serious questions about patient safety and care, due to cuts to services. “Does the Prime Minister agree with me that the duty of candour should apply

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EDP: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust’s use of controversial out of area beds rockets by 87%

Mental health patients in Norfolk and Suffolk are increasingly being sent to beds across the country – despite pledges to reduce the practice. Sending patients out of area has cost the trust £530,000 so far this year. Out-of-area placements saw an increase in bed days from 381 in April to 713 in May – a

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Audio: Campaigner Emma Corlett of Unison interviewed on BBC Radio Suffolk about cuts of £36 million proposed by NSFT in Special Measures

Listen to Emma Corlett of Unison interviewed by Luke Deal of BBC Radio Suffolk on the subject of the absurd plans for a further £36 million of cuts at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) on top of the £44 million of cuts which have seen, as a direct consequence, NSFT rated inadequate by

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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 trust plans £36m savings

Michael Scott has announced a further £36 million of cuts/savings at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) on top of the £44 million cuts/savings of the radical redesign which directly led to NSFT’s inadequate rating by the CQC and Special Measures. That’s a total of £80 million of cuts/savings over eight years but, as

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