Newsflash: Meeting at NHS Improvement today to decide whether Monitor should release NSFT from Special Measures

Today, officials meet at NHS Improvement (NHSI) to decide whether Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation should be released from Special Measures. Usually, when a health trust is put into Special Measures, money follows from commissioners to help put things right. This has not happened at NSFT. In fact, it has been difficult to get NHS […]

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EDP: ‘Something has to change’ – Southwold mental health activist Sarah Barrett speaks out after she was hospitalised 206 miles away from home

No wonder the Eastern Daily Press has been shortlisted for a mental health journalism award. Andrew Papworth reports: A teenage mental health patient sent to hospital 206 miles away from home while recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a violent assault has said: “We must campaign for local hospitals.” Sarah Barrett was 16 and studying

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Guardian: NHS child mental health services are failing the next generation, say GPs

Denis Campbell of the Guardian reports: Pulse’s figures, obtained under freedom of information legislation from 15 mental health trusts, showed that 61% of children and young people referred for help from CAMHS in 2015 received no treatment. A third were not even assessed for it. Only 20% of under-18s referred to Norfolk and Suffolk NHS

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Pulse: Why do 60% of GP child mental health referrals end with no treatment?

Caroline Price of Pulse reports: A whole generation of children is being failed by mental health services, say GPs who struggle to access specialist help for their patients. Seven out of the 15 trusts showed marked reductions. For example, at Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust the proportion treated fell from 42% to 26%,

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Pulse: Two-thirds of GP referrals for child mental health lead to no treatment

Caroline Price of Pulse reports: Figures obtained from 15 mental health trusts reveal that 60% of GP referrals to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) lead to no treatment and a third are not even assessed. The situation for young people with mental health issues appears to be worsening, with the numbers of referrals

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New Ways of Shirking: £1m of mental health funding under threat at NSFT after medical education failure

The papers for last week’s Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Board meeting report: SIFT and provision of medical undergraduate teaching. On 29th April the UEA wrote to NSFT to highlight the poor performance of teaching for Undergraduates provided by NSFT, the concerns about the length of time it has taken to make changes and the plan

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An NSFT Mother and Carer responds to the tragic death of Henry Curtis-Williams

A mother and carer responds to the tragic death of Henry Curtis-Williams: “Again another young person has died when he should have been protected from the dangers of mental illness. Assessed by a psychiatrist as needing no clinical care and released the next day without medication, Henry Curtis-Williams died and his mother and father have been

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Daily Mail: Parents whose fashion student son, 21, died five days after being released from a mental health unit say police failed to tell them when they found him ‘staring over the side of a bridge’

Keiligh Baker of the Daily Mail reports: The parents of a student who took his own life just five days after being released from a psychiatric unit are ‘distraught’ that police and health staff failed to alert them to his mental state. Henry Curtis-Williams was detained by police under the Mental Health Act after he was

Daily Mail: Parents whose fashion student son, 21, died five days after being released from a mental health unit say police failed to tell them when they found him ‘staring over the side of a bridge’ Read More »

Fiscal Fantasy Island: NSFT spends over half its Out Of Trust Acute (OOA) Beds budget in first two months of the year

The number of out of trust acute (OOA) bed days has nearly doubled: from 332 days in April 2016 to 647 days in May 2016. Most of these patients are being sent to the expensive, remote and private Mundesley Hospital, where it seems that none of the medical staff have passed the exams of the Royal

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Help: Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspecting NSFT in July 2016

CQC, the independent regulator of health, mental health and adult social care in England will be inspecting Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust the week beginning the 11th July.  They would like to hear feedback about mental health services before the inspection. There are a number of ways people can feedback their views (CQC are

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EADT: Will new children’s mental health unit in Suffolk solve ‘deeply troubling’ problem of young people in adult wards?

In another example of first-class investigative journalism, Andrew Hirst of the East Anglian Daily Times reports: Campaigners have welcomed plans for a new mental health unit for children in Suffolk after it emerged concerning numbers of young people from the region had been sent to adult wards – a practice described by one mother as

EADT: Will new children’s mental health unit in Suffolk solve ‘deeply troubling’ problem of young people in adult wards? Read More »

EDP: Meeting hears of mental health concerns

Patients, carers, professionals and members of the public met at the University of East Anglia to share their experiences at the second anniversary meeting of the Campaign to Save Mental Services in Norfolk and Suffolk. The guest speaker, author and Guardian journalist Owen Jones, was invited because of a moving article he wrote when the

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Gallery: Slides from Public Meeting: What is happening at NSFT? Do we still need a campaign?

You can view the presentation in the Gallery below or download the slides as a pdf to view offline, distribute or print.   The sources of the employment data are the various Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Annual Report and Accounts published between 2011 and 2015. The sources of the Serious Incident (SI)

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The Sun: Daughter-from-hell Macey, 9, terrifies mum…

Even The Sun is now printing articles about the problems accessing mental health services for children and young people in Suffolk. Bella Battle reports: Chloe, from Ipswich, Suffolk, said: “Does my own daughter have to put me in hospital before someone will act?” In a desperate attempt to help, Macey’s school contacted social services recommending

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EDP: We’re at a turning point, says Norfolk and Suffolk mental health chief

David Powles of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Michael Scott, Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust chief executive, pledged at yesterday’s AGM it had learned from its mistakes and promised that high quality, safe services would become ‘the norm not the exception’. However, his promises have been met with apprehension from mental health campaigners, who say

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EADT: Why are mental health problems rising in Suffolk?

In a major new piece of investigative journalism, David Powles of Archant reports: Huge increases in the number of children in Suffolk suffering from mental health problems were today laid bare – amid major concerns about the quality of services youngsters receive. Today, concerns were raised that help and support for children in Suffolk is

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Research: Specialist mental health services in England in 2014: overview of funding, access and levels of care

Specialist mental health services in England in 2014: overview of funding, access and levels of care Mary Docherty and Graham Thornicroft International Journal of Mental Health Systems 2015 9:34 DOI: 10.1186/s13033-015-0023-9 © Docherty and Thornicroft. 2015 Abstract Background Since the economic recession began in 2008 anecdotal reports suggest that mental health services in England have experienced disinvestment, but published data to test

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BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust: Children in adult wards ‘unacceptable’

Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Chair, Gary Page, blames NHS England. NSFT Director of Nursing, Jane Sayer, blames ‘trends’. NSFT Chief Executive, Michael Scott, blames NHS England. The NSFT Board again tries to portray itself yet again as victim not villain but forgets to mention that the NSFT Board was happy to take

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Audio: BBC Radio Suffolk interviews campaign member about CQC report and CAMHS crisis

Listen to Anne Humphreys, a carer and campaign member, talking from personal experience about the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rating of inadequate and the crisis in mental health services at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), with a particular focus on services for children and young people (CAMHS):   Anne and Bec have started

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Video: itv NEWS Anglia – Mental Health Trust condemned as inadequate

Norman Lamb MP appears on itv NEWS Anglia as a campaigner, a self-proclaimed mental health champion: “It is misguided to think that you can reduce spending in mental health and not expect consequences to that” So, who is the Minister of State at the Department of Health directly responsible for mental health who has overseen

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