Kept in the Dark: NSFT’s Board won’t face the public as services go down the toilet

NSFT too scared to face the truth as services go down the toilet

We’ve raised the issue of members of the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Board sitting with their backsides to the public, sometimes not even turning around to answer direct questions from the public, before, as have others. It is discourteous.

From the minutes of the NSFT Board meeting held on 22nd October, released on 26th November 2015:

Malcolm Blowers (Suffolk Governor) also raised the issue of the seating layout of the Board of Directors for the public session.   Gary Page and Robert Nesbitt explained that the meeting is a meeting of the Board of Directors held in public so that the public may attend and to give them an opportunity to raise questions at the middle and end of the session.  It is not a meeting of the Board and the public.  This is why the table is laid out as it is.

As mental health services go down the toilet, NSFT’s Board ignores complaints from governors and public alike. Quite simply, NSFT’s Board can’t face the public or the truth.

5 thoughts on “Kept in the Dark: NSFT’s Board won’t face the public as services go down the toilet”

  1. This is another example of NSFT disregarding the public. Surely a mental health Trust should be sensitive to body language and the Chair should be encouraging his entourage to include the public in its deliberations. I have attended some of these meetings and felt increasingly unwelcome. One participant has a soft voice which would be hard to hear even if she were not speaking with her back to the public. Have these people never been taught politeness and not to answer questions with their backs to people? Is the purpose of the horseshoe huddle to discourage attendance? I find it insulting,defensive and downright rude.

  2. ….And this is supposed to be a time when the board says it wants to be more open, accountable, and to  listen and  act on service users and staff’s concerns………Well…….’Actions speak louder than words’……and if you arrange the seating such that some members are sitting with their backs to the public then the message that sends out is DEAFENING.  But then the board have one undeniable trait……arrogance.  It would not be tolerated or even attempted by any other meetings of a public body…I wonder if Mr Hunt would turn up, unexpectedly,  for a meeting, how would they accommodate him…..sit with their backs to him possibly…….ermmmmm

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