Listen below to Norman Lamb yet again pretend that he is in opposition rather than the Minister of State at the Department of Health directly responsible for mental health. Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), Norman Lamb’s own local mental health trust, is in constant crisis and heading towards financial collapse. Yet, unbelievably, Norman Lamb tries in this interview to claim that he is on the same side as our campaign. This campaign is on the side of some of the most vulnerable people in society whose lives and health are being ruined by Norman Lamb’s real terms cuts to mental health funding, with further massive cuts planned.
Egotistical Norman Lamb tries to claim he is the best mental health minister ever. Yet Sue Bailey, the outgoing President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, describes mental health services as a ‘a car crash‘ and ‘in crisis‘. In Norfolk & Suffolk we know the reality of the Map of Shame.
We are not on the same side because Norman Lamb:
- 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
- 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
- uses NSFT’s Insight magazine as a party political election leaflet just before the local elections
- refused to talk to people who use mental health services, carers and staff when we demonstrated outside his Cashless Concordat launch at Carrow Road
Norman Lamb needs to act decisively to ensure that his own local mental health trust does not collapse and that mental health services are fit for purpose in his own constituency, throughout Norfolk and Suffolk and nationwide. Words and empty promises, taskforces and concordats are no longer enough.
