Video: Channel 4 News – Mental health: too many patients, not enough beds

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Newsflash: Campaign on Channel 4 News tonight at seven – Mental health: too many patients, not enough beds

Beds full There have been times in the past couple of years when they have sent 30 or 40 people sometimes hundreds of miles away because their beds have been full. A new management team has recently been brought in and they have managed to reduce this to seven or eight. But when I asked

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In NSFT’s words: Bed pressure

“Use of ‘red leave’ bed’s to manage patients locally, meaning using beds deemed to be held for patients considered to be potentially at risk by inpatient teams. Increased demands on staffing to manage high turnover of service users as well as protracted time periods required to manage applications for OOA placements as well as transport issues. OOA placement usage, this provides financial pressures and risk as well as quality risk. Extended

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In NSFT’s words: Unallocated cases

“Inability to provide an individual practitioner to every Service User in Central Adult Community There are a growing number of unallocated clinical cases in the Central Locality who require Care Coordination or Lead Care Professional alignment which could result in a lack of timely intervention if required. last recorded unallocated numbers awaiting caseload allocation is 381.” The current dangerous situation in mental health community teams is going to become much, much worse

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BBC: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust funding concerns

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

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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BBC Radio Norfolk: Campaigners Emma Corlett and Terry Skyrme outline the crisis at NSFT and likely impact of Carlton Court closure. Duplicitous Norman Lamb pretends to be in opposition again

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

BBC Radio Norfolk: Campaigners Emma Corlett and Terry Skyrme outline the crisis at NSFT and likely impact of Carlton Court closure. Duplicitous Norman Lamb pretends to be in opposition again Read More »

BBC Norfolk and Suffolk mental health bed cuts criticised

A spokesman for the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Suffolk and Norfolk said: “The campaign is very concerned about the loss of the 136 suite which provides a vital place of safety for people who are some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. “With regards to the reduction in mental health

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

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

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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Independent: Children’s mental healthcare in crisis, Care Minister Norman Lamb admits

“…charities and local councils warned of a “national crisis” in young people’s mental health. Nearly half of all local authorities have slashed funding for services after seeing their budgets cut by the Coalition Government’s austerity drive – with funding for children’s mental health reduced by as much as 94 per cent in some areas.” Whose

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Newsflash: CAMHS crisis in tomorrow’s Independent with live interviews on BBC Radio Suffolk & Norfolk

Read Charlie Cooper’s article on the crisis in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) tomorrow in The Independent. Listen to our campaigner and CAMHS carer, Anne,  interviewed live tomorrow: On BBC Radio Suffolk just after the 0630 news On BBC Radio Norfolk just after the 0700 news

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Audio: BBC Radio Norfolk told by carer: “The trust [NSFT] in general treat their staff like rubbish… they really do… it’s no wonder days are lost because they’re stressed”

A Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) carer, Catherine, rang BBC Radio Norfolk this morning and told journalist Louise Priest what she thinks about the way NSFT staff are treated. You can listen to the audio below. “Very good, very well qualified, very conscientious and hardworking people… well and truly overworked.” “Recently, we had

Audio: BBC Radio Norfolk told by carer: “The trust [NSFT] in general treat their staff like rubbish… they really do… it’s no wonder days are lost because they’re stressed” Read More »

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

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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EDP: Carlton Colville woman blasts mental health chiefs over cuts

A woman whose husband suffers from dementia has criticised proposed cuts to mental health services in Waveney and Great Yarmouth, saying lives are being destroyed by measures designed to save money. Mrs Sale, of Rushmere Road, Carlton Colville, said her husband was sent to the Coach House specialist dementia care home in Hemsby, where she

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BBC News: King’s Fund – ‘Shunted around the country’ – the coalition government has actually overseen a decline in spending on mental health

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

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

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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EDP: Mental health trust under fire again after second man falls to his death at the Castle Mall

One of our key recommendations for ending the crisis in mental health services at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) is the restoration of decent mental health services for the most vulnerable. The specialist assertive outreach teams which national guidance and evidence recommends have not just been cut but rather completely closed, leaving those

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Wonderful news: NSFT Operations Director Kathy Chapman PROMOTED!

It was perhaps inevitable, after working as the architect of the radical redesign at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) which has truly transformed mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk, that Kathy Chapman would attract attention on a national level. Chapman’s innovative approach to designing mental health services brought local and national news

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Why the CQC selected NSFT for early inspection in its own words: Decision to schedule Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust for Inspection

We wrote to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) because Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has been claiming that the forthcoming CQC inspection is routine/random and that the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk & Suffolk was being inaccurate and misleading to write that NSFT had been selected as a priority for early

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