“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 time periods spent in S136 suite. Staff absence impacting including maternity leave, staff suspended for investigation purposes, and longer term sickness absence.”
Yet still Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) and commissioners are planning to close Carlton Court in spite of massive public opposition.
Duplicitous Norman Lamb MP says the out of area (OOA) beds situation is ‘unacceptable’ pretending that he isn’t the Minister of State at the Department of Health in charge of mental health. A self-promotional sponsored bike ride just before the general election is not going to be enough, Norman, whether you claim it on parliamentary expenses or not. If you want to impress us Mr Lamb, why don’t you concentrate on your ministerial job and another map: the Map of Shame? This week a large man was sent to Brighton in a tiny cage in the back of a van. The Map of Shame doesn’t include the children shipped around the country because there are insufficient beds.
All of these journeys, made by people in crisis, are rather tougher than an electioneering bike ride and should cost the nauseating Norman Lamb your vote.
