EDP: Mental health trust spent record amount on agency staff

A mental health trust which is aiming to make savings of £8.9million spent a record high of £2.4m on temporary staff last month, it has emerged.

Following the investigation by Monitor, which was launched in November, Norfolk and Suffolk agreed to try and make savings of £8.9m in this financial year.

There is no overall savings target for the future, but it has previously been reported that it is expecting to make £36m in “efficiency savings” over the next four years.

During a meeting of the trust’s board of directors in Ipswich yesterday, bosses spoke of the need to make improvements to both its finances and its performance.

‘El84’ comments on the EDP website:

The problem has everything to do with the national staff survey results. This survey is conducted every year at every trust & last years results showed NSFT to be the very worst mental health trust to work for. Of the 57 trusts in England. The results, which are all in the public domain & thus available to anyone applying for a job at NSFT showed… Overall staff engagement, worst trust in England. Staff motivation at work, worst trust in England. Job satisfaction, worst trust in England. Staff reporting good communication between senior management and staff, worst trust in England. Support from immediate managers, worst. Staff recommendation of trust as a place to work or to receive treatment, worst trust in England. Percentage of staff suffering work related stress in last 12 months, worst. Percentage of staff witnessing potentially harmful errors, near misses or incidents in last month, worst. Work pressure felt by staff, worst. Staff feeling satisfied with the quality of work and patient care they are able to deliver, worst. Staff experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from other staff, fourth 4th worst. Why would anyone choose to work for them, especially when it is clearly obvious from looking at previous years results that the trust under it’s current CEO Michael Scott, is getting worse not better.

In this article Michael Scott claims, yet again, that his problem is not an NSFT problem, it is a national problem. Yawn.

Click on the image below to read Matt Bunn’s article on the EDP website: