Hugh Pym of the BBC writes:
‘Shunted around the country’
The King’s Fund think tank says that the coalition government has actually overseen a decline in spending on mental health.
Its analysis suggests inflation-adjusted spending has decreased from £11.5bn in the 2010/11 financial year to £11.3 bn two years later which, given the increase in the population, they say means spending per head fell by a greater proportion.
Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham said people would be sceptical of future promises from the deputy prime minister.
“He promised parity between mental and physical health, but ended up presiding over a situation where vulnerable people are forced to travel across the country for treatment and others kept in police cells because a short of beds.”
Of course, we in Norfolk and Suffolk know all about the Map of Shame.
Clegg’s party colleague, Norman Lamb, is our duplicitous local MP for North Norfolk, who:
- pretends to be in opposition when he is the government Minister of State at the Department of Health directly responsible for mental health
- pretends to be powerless when his government established NHS England and the CCGs
- says he believes in parity of esteem when he has cut funding for mental health (see above)
- pretends his Cashless Concordat will make a difference without resources
- claims to be against discrimination while ImROC is misused to stigmatise the most needy as ‘dependent’ and to cut services
- pretends to find what is happening at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) unacceptable whilst doing nothing about it
- claims to believe in the integration of health and social care as it disintegrates
- claims to believe in the NHS whilst writing to NHS trusts encouraging them to leave the NHS
- refused to talk to people who use mental health services, carers and staff when we demonstrated outside his Cashless Concordat launch at Carrow Road.
[Click on the blue text to find out more about each example of Lamb’s duplicity]
Norman Lamb is a wolf in sheep’s clothing; his claim to be a champion of those who rely on mental health services is nauseating.
You can read the complete article by clicking on the image below:
The hypocrisy of our politicians knows no bounds. Wednesday’s EDP reported on the tragic death of a young man discharged from mental health services who died while walking at night in the middle of the road. He was described as being overcome by social problems. More and more young people are being referred to the Trust’s crisis team becoming suicidal because of poverty, homelessness, unemployment etc; the case for social work input in the Crisis Team has never been greater, but the Trust has allowed the number of social workers to reduce from 5 to 2, as a result of secondments, long-term sicknes and maternity leave. No replacements have been forthcoming for the last 12 months. On top of this we have the disintegration of health and social care with social workers due to be transferred to Norfolk County Council in October, and surprise surprise this is being used as an opportunity to cut the establishment of social workers in CRHT from 5 to 3. Norfolk CC are insisting that social workers revert to their core statutory tasks of CCA assessments etc. There will be little time for the kind of preventive work that can help young people who are homeless, have no benefits and little prospect of work.
The whole system is now completely falling apart. Of course the problems have been there from day one, and warned of, at least 18 months before this. Now the entire system is backing up, with no acute beds, no Alternative To Admission beds, (ATA), which have never worked from the beginning either. ( How can a residential home operate like an acute ward….yet that is what exactly the trust expects..with struggling dementia Intensive Support Teams to try and prop them up). And when they can’t, middle managers, and the team’s themselves get the blame. Staff are now at breaking point…does the trust care…no not at all…patients dying, ‘ being left sectioned at home’, because the nearest private bed is in Cheshire and no private ambulance to take them to it, and of course the poor desperate relatives. Trust’s response….nothing. Norman Lamb’s response, platitudes and little else. Its a complete disgrace, with no one at the top taking the blame, and those that were the planners ‘moving on’ to new jobs. I’m guessing they’d have accepted the accolades had this ridiculous Radical Redesign had worked, but it didn’t, as predicted, and those responsible have ‘dodged’ the blame, and the Board’s response is to hire more PR people. DISGRACEFUL