Friday 19th September 2014: Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Annual General Meeting (AGM)

The Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Annual General Meeting (AGM) is being held at Trinity Park, Felixstowe Road, Ipswich IP3 8UH between 1730 and 1830 with refreshments from 1700. The Campaign is not making a major effort to be present because questions are limited to ten minutes and the whole meeting lasts only one hour. However, it […]

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EDP: Concern over £16m temporary staffing bill for Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust

“Emma Corlett, NSFT Unison media spokesperson, who is also a mental health nurse in Norwich, said the cuts to local services had proved to be a “false economy.” She added that the trust continued to spend large sums of money on temporary staffing costs, which amounted to £2.39m in August and more than £8m for the

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Lowestoft Journal: Demonstrators gather outside Carlton Court to protest at mental health cuts

Kathryn Bradley of the Lowestoft Journal reports: The group was cheered on by visitors and staff entering the hospital grounds. During the event, Mr Skyrme said NSFT was also proposing to cut Section 136 suites at Carlton Court and throughout Norfolk and replace them with a single unit at Hellesdon. The suites are used to assess

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BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health unit waits of 22 hours ‘not acceptable’

Nic Rigby of the BBC reports: Patients having to wait up to 22 hours in mental health assessment suites in Norfolk and Suffolk is “unacceptable”, leading experts have said. A BBC Freedom of Information request found that between January and July, seven patients had to wait more than 15 hours and three more than 20.

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Saturday 13th September: Demonstrate to Save Carlton Court

Mental health services across Norfolk and Suffolk need more beds not fewer. The people of Waveney need a local hospital, section 136 suite and crisis team. Many of the people who use Carlton Court are not local but come from across Norfolk and Suffolk. We cannot allow the destruction of an integrated mental health care

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

Try the video contained in this link if the embedded video below doesn’t play on your phone or tablet. If that doesn’t work you’ll need to try on a computer or different device. Sorry, we don’t make the Channel 4 video player.

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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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Financial scandal: NSFT recruiting to replace doctor paid thousands to leave

We’ve written before about the financial scandal of the £7.3 million redundancy programme at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), which paid experienced and highly qualified staff to leave, wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, placed services at risk, damaged continuity and quality of care and created a recruitment crisis. NSFT claimed at

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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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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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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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Quiz time: What is the increase in staffing at NSFT after the three month recruitment drive?

Remember this from April 2014? “Directors were told that the mental health trust had secured an extra £500,000 from Clinical Commissioning Groups in Norfolk to help hire new staff to meet demand. It comes after NSFT officials announced last week that 269 of 412 vacancies would be filled in the next three months.” At the time,

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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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