“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, the bereaved, carers, mental health staff and concerned members of the public.
When clinicians first raised concerns, they were dismissed as ‘shroud wavers.’ NSFT hid behind statistical uncertainties and national averages and dismissed our warnings; the Alexander Report was buried.
Now, unreleased NSFT data demonstrates the consequences of the radical redesign at NSFT: a dramatic rise of 70% in deaths among the users of mental health services in the community which cannot be explained by natural causes or drug and alcohol misuse.
Families across Norfolk and Suffolk are now paying the scandalous price of the cuts and chaos with an additional and unnecessary funeral every ten days. The people of Norfolk and Suffolk deserve and expect better. We demand a public inquiry into what has gone wrong at NSFT and proper funding to restore decent services. We have witnessed a mental health Mid Staffs. We need to know why it has been allowed to continue to get worse for so long.”
