Exclusive: Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) plans to cut more than 438 posts in only two years

Pigs wallowing in filth

We have been passed a copy of the Operational Plan 2014-16 of Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) and its contents are shocking. In the 2013-14 financial year, mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk were already in deep crisis and this campaign was founded as a result. Yet the Operational Plan submitted to Monitor in April 2014 has a budget for 2015-16 with 438 fewer staff or a workforce more than eleven per cent smaller than 2013-14: 195 fewer healthcare assistants, 103 fewer nurses, 73 fewer science and technical staff, 29 fewer social care staff and ten fewer other clinical staff. How is this ‘parity of esteem’, Norman Lamb, North Norfolk MP and Secretary of State at the Department of Health responsible for mental health?

But, of course, while the number of healthcare assistants delivering services on the frontline is cut by 23.5%, MPs will enjoy their ten per cent pay rise, the CEOs of the seven CCGs will take their £100,000+ salaries, the NSFT Board stays the same size and the number of admin and clerical staff will reduced by a mere 2.9%. If heads are immersed deeply enough in the trough, ears fill with swill and the voiceless and the vulnerable cannot be heard.

This is NSFT’s own table from its submission to Monitor:

Analysis of Worforce Numbers from NSFT 2014-16 Year Operational Plan

Just in case any optimist thought this will be the end of the cuts to jobs and services to the mentally ill, the chart for the next five years from the NSFT Strategic Plan, the one we weren’t supposed to see, is below.  Thank God for ImROC, so that the feckless ‘dependents’ with mental illness and the ‘dependency culture’ can take the blame for the vicious cuts rather than the bureaucrats and the politicians.

This is NSFT’s own graph from its submission to Monitor:

NSFT Worforce Demand Trends from 5 Year Strategic Plan

6 thoughts on “Exclusive: Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) plans to cut more than 438 posts in only two years”

  1. If Michael doesn’t get it perhaps he should read “The Spirit Level” by Williamson and Pickett, which charts the link between the rates of mental illness and the degree of inequality in society. How does it feel to be someone suffering from chronic mental illness, who faces a lifetime of poverty, when they see the huge salaries of top managers; how does it feel when you have no money and your benefits are stopped without warning? We should remenber the death of David Clapson, who died penniless and alone (Guardian 4/8/14), or the recent anniversary of the death of Mark Wood, “a vulnerable sufferer from severe mental health problems” whose benefits were cut after he had been erroneously declared fit for work and whose emaciated body was found in his home in David Cameron’s Oxfordshire constituency? How does it feel to be on the end of cuts to mental health services while NHS Chief Executive salaries have risen to obscene levels? How does it feel when politicians claim to campaign for mental health services but actually do nothing but exploit the expenses system to the full and vote themselves large salary increases? How does it feel when consultants are given huge voluntary redundancy packages while patients have great difficulty in even getting to see a psychiatrist? How come our ‘radical redesign’/service strategy/five-year operational plan doesn’t include salary cuts for chief executive, chairperson and directors?

  2. Terry
    Not only have I read ‘ Spirit Level’ I own a copy and have had the privilege of hearing the authors speak . They have a very compelling thesis but I still dont see how the picture helps anyone ?

  3. Inequality and poverty is not an academic, theoretical issue, but a living reality. The picture helps by graphically illustrating what is happening in society. Not only is NSFT very hierarchical and unequal in the way it treats patients and staff, it is also ready to pay millions to private health companies such as the Priory Group, Cygnet and Partners in Care, millions taken from public funds and passed into private hands.

  4. What has the image got to do with the situation? All animals are equal, only some are more equal than others. Now just to work out who the two legs are and who the four legs are in this sorry situation.

  5. Old Cockler writes:

    Poor old Michael. Not only does he appear to be struggling with the use or otherwise of the apostrophe, but his ham-fisted attempt to distract attention from the key issues being raised is little short of laughable.

    So if you’re reading this Michael (did you see what I did there?) then please direct your energies to answering, on this page, how in hell you can justify the planned reductions in clinical staff from your own figures.

    And while we’re at it, maybe you might want to concern yourself with the fact that out here on the coast (where nothing much happens, etc) we had a patient sleeping on a makeshift bed for two days, before we found a private bed for them. And Carlton Court is planned for closure?

    Shut the door on your way out.

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