This is absolutely shocking:
A Norwich man with mental-health problems was kept in a police cell for more than 24 hours and then sent to a private hospital 175 miles away for two weeks because there were not any beds for him in East Anglia.
This is appalling:
A 25-year-old man is being kept in a medium security mental health unit near Diss, almost four months after being told he was free… his father told the EDP he could not be released because a clinician had not been found for his son.
“They have not done what they were told by the tribunal,” he said. “He is a free man who is being locked up.”
And NSFT’s financial position is far worse than expected:
The EDP can today reveal the true scale of cash problems at the region’s mental-health provider, which is set to run up a deficit of more than £5m by the end of this financial year.
A leaked document shows the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust’s (NSFT) deficit was £2.3m in October and another £4m of savings, needed by the end of March, are yet to be identified.
How can people avoid taking responsibility for failures of this magnitude? Mental health services are a disgrace and those to blame should be sacked.
How have the NSFT Board and Governors, the Magnificent Seven CCGs, Monitor, NHS England, the CQC, Healthwatch and Health Minister Norman Lamb allowed the crisis to turn into a meltdown? There appears to be no public accountability at all.
We’ve been campaigning for over a year but the problems have become worse rather than better. There are hundreds of quangocrats but they’ve been worse than useless. Where is the sense of urgency? How can Norman Lamb claim to be a champion of mental health when since 2010 NSFT’s budget has been cut by £30 million relative to physical health?
Last night at our committee meeting we were joined by more people who have lost loved ones after being let down by mental health services. They are joining our campaign because they are determined that other families should not suffer. If only the politicians and NHS bureaucracy felt the same way.
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