Financial scandal: NSFT recruiting to replace doctor paid thousands to leave

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We’ve written before about the financial scandal of the £7.3 million redundancy programme at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), which paid experienced and highly qualified staff to leave, wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, placed services at risk, damaged continuity and quality of care and created a recruitment crisis. NSFT claimed at […]

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BBC: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust funding concerns

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Nic Rigby of the BBC reports: A mental health trust covering an area where care minister Norman Lamb is MP has warned it is struggling to provide a “safe and effective” service. Gary Page, chair of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, said “fundamental” changes were needed. Mr Page told the BBC: “We welcome the

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EDP: New chief’s pledge to open new mental health beds in Norwich

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At last, after a year of campaigning, Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has finally acknowledged that the ‘so-called bed crisis’ is a real bed crisis and that beds can be opened as well as closed.  Thank you, Michael Scott, Chief Executive of NSFT for starting to listen to us! “[Michael Scott] told members

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Financial crisis: EDP ‘It can not go on’ – CEO’s warning on mental health funding

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Michael Scott, who took over as boss of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) earlier this year, said his organisation was already around £1m in deficit for the current financial year and the way mental health services were funded could not carry on. It is great news that Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

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Press Release: Trust and campaign agree to work together to improve mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk

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Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk have agreed to work together to ensure the services provided meet the needs of both counties. The Trust’s Chief Executive, Michael Scott, and Chair, Gary Page, met representatives from the Campaign in July to listen to services

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mummabearuk: A CAMHS carer responds to Norman Lamb’s ‘taskforce’

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Anne, a CAMHS carer and campaign supporter, writes: “So now the press embargo has been lifted I can write about Norman Lamb’s Task Force which has been announced in today’s media. So he’s finally decided that children and young people’s mental health services need improving – has he really only just thought of this! If

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Legal: NHS Trusts & CCGs face criminal prosecution and unlimited fines for inappropriate discharges and placements. Individual staff face up to two years’ imprisonment

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Below is an excellent and informative bulletin on the subject of the legal obligations of NHS trusts regarding discharges and placements.  It was prepared by the former solicitors of Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), Mills & Reeve, in July 2012.  The bulletin was widely circulated within NSFT.  Let’s hope that NSFT’s new in-house

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Quiz Answer: The increase in staffing at NSFT after the three month recruitment drive was NINE!

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Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) managed to add just NINE out of its pledged 269 additional staff. That is only 3.3 per cent of its target and an average net increase of three per month. This isn’t a laughing matter.  Staff are desperately needed because: community team caseloads are unmanageable and unsafe; wards

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Audio: Campaigner Emma Corlett of Unison interviewed on BBC Radio Norfolk about massive cuts envisaged by NSFT’s 5 Year Strategic Plan

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We have already written about the massive cuts envisaged by the 5 Year Plan submitted by Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) to its regulator, Monitor. At the NSFT Board meeting last week, one of the non-executive directors of NSFT acknowledged that the real-terms depth of the planned cuts is 7.5 per cent per

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EDP: Mental health trust warns of more jobs cuts in Norfolk and Suffolk as part of plans to make £44m more savings

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Campaigners have pledged to lobby Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust’s (NSFT) board of directors meeting today over a new plan, which says that extra savings of £44m would need to be found by 2019, if there is no major increase in mental health funding. Members of the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in

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NSFT pulls its Five Year Strategic Plan from the internet

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But you can still read our copy of the five year strategic plan here. The plan begins on page 20 of the pdf. Strange the way it disappeared after we criticised it. The papers for the Board of Directors meeting in Swaffam tomorrow don’t contain it any longer. How embarrassing.

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26th June 2014: Help us oppose the NSFT Board’s five year plan for further ‘savings’ of £44.1 million, 200 more job losses and more reorganisations and chaos

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Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Chair, Gary Page, is too busy watching the football in sunny Brazil to attend the next public Board of Directors meeting at The Green Britain Centre (formerly Eco-Tech) in Swaffam on Thursday, 26th June 2014. But it is vital that we attend. Join us to oppose the rubber stamping

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NSFT seeks to reduce out of area placements by refusing emergency admissions rather than by providing necessary beds

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A member of the Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) crisis team writes: “NSFT seems determined to reduce the number of out of area placements but not by providing an adequate number of local beds. A senior NSFT manager is going around the country trying to discharge out of area patients. How can this

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BBC: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health patients in 200-mile bed trek

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“Some mental health patients in Suffolk and Norfolk are having to travel more than 200 miles (321km) for a bed, it has emerged. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said the situation was “unacceptable”. Unison urged the government to develop a “rescue package” for mental health services, which they said left 22 patients facing the journey last

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EDP: ‘Unacceptable’ – health secretary Jeremy Hunt pledges action on out of area mental health placements in Norfolk and Suffolk

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Adam Gretton of the Eastern Daily Press (EDP) reports: The government’s health minister pledged to “do what it takes” to address the pressure on mental health beds after being told of some Norfolk and Suffolk patients having to travel more than 200 miles for a bed. When told about the situation at NSFT, Mr Hunt

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Audio: BBC Suffolk interview & opinion poll as NSFT Chair Mr Page denies both 30th April out of area deadline and bed closures in Suffolk

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Listen to Mr Page, the chair of Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), claim that no beds have been or will be closed in Suffolk – until a local listener contacts BBC Suffolk to say that NSFT has closed beds at Carlton Court in Suffolk and is involved in a consultation with HealthEast over further

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EDP: Graphic – Mental health patients sent to Yorkshire, London and North East after trust misses target to end bed placements outside of Norfolk

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But Terry Skyrme, who works as a social worker for the NHS trust and member of the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk, said that when he left work last Wednesday there were 21 patients in out of area beds, with the vast majority in private hospitals across the country. He

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EDP Editorial: Pledge has been broken

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“At a time when public funds are stretched, there are huge questions to be asked about the cost of sending people hundreds of miles away to private mental health beds. But on a human level, the practice of dispatching vulnerable patients so far from friends and family, must stop. Officials from the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS

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Audio: Emma Corlett interviewed on BBC Radio Suffolk Breakfast Show about proposed cuts to mental health services

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Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has tried to intimidate us into silence and failed. Instead, NSFT has silenced itself, unable to find any member of the executive team willing to defend the indefensible on the BBC. Whatever happened to public accountability? How much is Fay Quayle, the interim Head of Communications, being paid

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