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 bed closures that NSFT seeks:
Listen to Mr Page claim that there wasn’t a 30th April 2014 deadline to end the use of out of area beds. Again, a concerned listener rang the BBC to say that the undertaking had been made on the front page of the EDP and to the Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee of Norfolk County Council. The breaking of this pledge was also the subject of a major piece of investigative reporting and an editorial in the EDP entitled ‘Pledge has been broken’. ITV News Anglia recently reported that NSFT is spending up to £15,000 per day on private and out of area beds. How could Mr Page not ‘recognise’ this broken pledge or miss this level of expenditure in the NSFT accounts?
Click on the image below to read the pledge made by NSFT that Mr Page doesn’t recognise:
‘NSFT have closed no beds in Suffolk’……….. except the 24 beds that they closed in October 2013 in the Older People’s Service at Carlton Court. Carlton Court is in Waveney, which is in Suffolk. Is it really that hard for the Chair of the Trust to know the facts, (especially with a new ‘communication guru’ on board)………. OR did he deliberately try to deceive the listeners?. Can the public, patients and staff really trust people who give public statements like this.?