Corporate Cuts but not for Corporate Cronies

Corporate staff at NSFT have endured incredible unease for the last few months whilst having to re-interview for their jobs knowing it comes with a de-banding with less money for double the productivity. Staff have already walked. This might be part of the country-wide corporate cuts but each Trust will choose their priorities of where to spend the remaining 50% and where to cut.

Meanwhile, the senior leadership are recently applauding a CQC rating of ‘nearly good’ despite actually missing the mark. Don’t get us wrong, there are some good things starting to happen but we want to assure it’s happening on the ground and we are yet to see real evidence of this, especially seeing sustainable change.

The Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) have mentioned in the last year that the national cut to corporate services by 50% will cause them to make some very difficult decisions. Our not so new leadership (mostly from the ivory towers of NHS England and NHS Improvement) have been in post for over a year and a half now and have yet to make a dent in their transformation plan. Only in summer 2025 did they announce the findings of the crisis service deep dive, showing the exact issues that the campaign had shouted concerns about in the years previously. 

With the corporate cuts happening and the personal anecdotes of worry from the Exec board not knowing where the pennies will come from, we decided to look more into these tough choices they are making. We also explored the vast amount of new senior management role vacancies that keep popping up which often show band 8-9 with salary ranging between £70k-£120k.

2025’s member’s day and AGM focussed on a theme of how service users were so important in the implementation of their improvements. However, we have seen exactly how little co-production really goes on at NSFT. The governors are barely included and seem to be put down for rightly challenging. The service user participation is very particular and again, people are chucked out if too much challenge or questioning takes place. The corridors of power rushed the improvement plan through with no original consultation and are only now inviting service users, to make sure they obey the stakeholder and regulators tick boxes. That is not co-production and should not be called co-production.

Workshops were supposed to go ahead in November for crisis transformation plan, almost two years after the transformation had already been laid out for MP’s, CQC, NHSE and the local ICB’s. Board papers suggested they happened in the summer of 2025. 15 February 2025 was when NSFT came out of Special Measures. Caroline Donovan, the Trust CEO exclaimed “I am delighted that we now have a Service User and Carer Council established with plans to develop one council in each of our five new localities. This is essential to ensure the voice of service users, carers and families is integrated into everything we do.” We spoke to the chair of this Service User Council in October 2025 and they said they were still on Terms of Reference and were not sure what their role was and how to influence the Board (Board meeting October 2025).

Not once did the Exec board, who now come from far and wide, take acknowledgement of this area’s history and trauma with the depth of previous failings and the damage the trust and its service users and staff have endured for a decade. No, this plan worked elsewhere so it will surely work here, at what was deemed the worst trust in the country. No initial consultations were done when they got flown in an emergency, it’s my plan and I’ll cry if I want to. We are nearly 2 years into 5 and we will all probably cry now.

During these corporate cuts, we thought we would check the openness and transparency around the ‘transformed’ management structure and improved culture as apparently there are only pockets of bad culture left.. The campaign committee raised this at our latest meeting with them as no director/leadership public structure exists. Only the board and locality structures are online. We have asked for this to be more transparent considering the amount of new roles that have been appointed this year and the amount of money spent on these roles especially whilst others are losing their jobs or taking a cut.

We wanted to look into who else would be joining the ‘sustainable transformation’ of NSFT and what skin they had in the game. Sadly, we didn’t find too much local talent, although there are a few. We found a continuation of friends coming from far and wide, who have not even considered re-locating to this area. Probably because they know how bad the mental health services are…. 

So with these corporate cuts, will the deputy CEO and Medical Director Faisal Sethi take a goodwill gesture of a slight pay cut from his £254,835? Of course not. It’s far too cool being paid more than your female CEO. 

So -Here’s a list of the corporate services that will need a 50% cut.

Corporate areas at NSFT: 

One newly created post of Deputy Director of Safety and Security, has been granted to Tony Gray. Gary O’Hare, Anthony Deery and Stewart Gee have all worked with Tony previously. We suspect like many of the board members, he will also be doing this role remotely without relocating as they come from far and wide. Does it feel like they all care about saving this troubled trust, or just boosting their pensions for the last time? We hope that the intentions are genuine but how can we trust it?

When the campaign committee met with the Board on 5 November 2025, we brought to their attention a post by Tony Gray on his public social media account. We felt with the mention of improving culture during this difficult time for their front line staff, it should be given a mention. We mentioned it and sent screenshots hoping they would act on asking him to take it down. Now, 20 days later and it’s still there, we have given them a chance.

21 May 2025

“Me too, but couldn’t refuse the offer and the difference it makes to my pension, always said I would retire at 60, so this opportunity has come along at the right time.”

Job advert was posted 24 January 2025

Salary: £88,168- £101,677

He started in June 2025 but the post was in May 2025, confirming he was already helping out in Cumbria.

How can a job as important as this be done from so far away. I’m sure the community, members, service users, carers and staff probably would think, are we not worth it? The start date for Tony’s job was just weeks before a Corporate Services redesign where multiple jobs are to be lost in a cost saving exercise, convenient some might say and certainly jobs for old friends.

www.cntw.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Agenda-Item-8-ii-Security-Annual-Report-14-15-Final-May-15.pdf

Here is the trust explaining the need for all these roles despite needing to find cuts elsewhere to the frontline and to the peer worker roles

So there it is, corporate cuts but not for old colleagues.

We would love to hear from you, especially if you have had to re-apply for your job this autumn or if you have felt the need to walk, we will keep you anonymous, we understand the culture of fear.

Campaign committee

Email us at norfolksuffolkcrisis@gmail.com