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

Bed Crisis, CAMHS Crisis, Community Crisis, Crisis Team Crisis, Dangerous, Financial crisis, NSFT Cuts, Press, Questions for the Board / By

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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EDP: Four-fold increase in bill to send mental health patients out of the region

Bed Crisis, Community Crisis, Financial crisis, NSFT Cuts, Press, Questions for the Board / By

The Eastern Daily Press reports: A lack of beds and increased demand led to a four-fold increase in the cost of sending people with mental health problems outside of Norfolk and Suffolk in 2014/15. When a bed on a ward is not available for people who need it in the region they are sent elsewhere

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EDP: ‘You seem to be a board that’s in denial’ – number of deaths rise at Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust

Bed Crisis, CAMHS Crisis, Campaigning, Community Crisis, Crisis Team Crisis, Dangerous, Kept in the dark, NSFT Cuts, PR Crisis, Press, Questions for the Board / By

An internal investigation has been launched into mental health services in Suffolk and Norfolk after the number of patient deaths increased from 95 to 130 in a year. It means that the average number of deaths, including in accidents and suicides by people known to professionals to be living with a mental health disorder, has

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Fantasy Island: The CQC Video Files: ‘Responsive’

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Dedicated front line staff continued to do everything they could to offer a responsive service despite the cuts and chaos of the ‘radical redesign’. Their warnings and concerns were largely ignored by the arrogant and complacent management and Board of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) with appalling results. This ‘corporate video’ was made

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EDP: Anger as Suffolk adult mental health unit closes

Bed Crisis, Campaigning, Dangerous, NSFT Cuts, Press, Questions for the Board / By

David Powles of the EDP exclusively reports: Campaigners fear even more adult mental health patients will have to be sent outside of the region, after it was confirmed a unit to treat them in had been closed down. Yesterday, health bosses confirmed the remaining two patients had been transferred to the nearby Northgate Hospital in

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Fantasy Island: The CQC Video Files: ‘Caring’

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Dedicated front line staff continued to do everything they could to offer a caring service despite the cuts and chaos of the ‘radical redesign’. This ‘corporate video’ was made in preparation for the visit of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT). This visit, which resulted in an ‘Inadequate’

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Fantasy Island: The CQC Video Files: ‘Effective’

Community Crisis, CQC Inspection, Dangerous, In NSFT's words, Kept in the dark, Lorenzo, NSFT - A Warning from History, NSFT Cuts, Questions for the Board, Special Measures / By

This ‘corporate video’ was made in preparation for the visit of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT). This visit, which resulted in an ‘Inadequate’ rating and the NHS regulator, Monitor, placing NSFT into Special Measures, took place months after the completion of the interviews for the Alexander Report

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Fantasy Island: The CQC Video Files: ‘Safe’

Community Crisis, CQC Inspection, In NSFT's words, Kept in the dark, Lorenzo, NSFT - A Warning from History, NSFT Cuts, Questions for the Board, Special Measures / By

This ‘corporate video’ was made in preparation for the visit of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT). This visit, which resulted in an ‘Inadequate’ rating and the NHS regulator, Monitor, placing NSFT into Special Measures, took place months after the completion of the interviews for the Alexander Report

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EDP: Eight areas of concern found at one ward in Norfolk hospital

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Nicholas Carding of the Eastern Daily Press reports: The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found staff at Beach Ward, in Hammerton Court, Julian Hospital, Bowthorpe Road, Norwich, had carried out incomplete record-keeping, incomplete risk-assessments, and that there was a “poor compliance with mental capacity assessments.” Beach Ward, run by Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT),

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EDP: Norfolk and Suffolk’s troubled mental health trust is not improving quickly enough

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Nicholas Carding of the EDP reports: The region’s underfire mental health trust is not improving as quickly as hoped, according to a health watchdog’s leader for mental health. A letter seen by the EDP and Evening News, says the Care Quality Commission (CQC) are expecting to see “more progress at a quicker pace” from Norfolk

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EDP: Heartbroken family say Norfolk teenager received poor mental health care

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More high quality reporting from David Powles into the treatment, or lack of treatment, of Kieran Fulcher on the front page of the EDP. Why does the press have to do the job of our politicians and NHS bureaucracy, just as it had to at Mid Staffs? The upper echelons of the NHS behave as

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NSFT – A Warning from History: “Assertive Outreach was simply airbrushed out”

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NSFT claims to the EDP: Has the trust taken on board the concerns about the scrapping of the Assertive Outreach Team? If so what has been done? “Following the integration of the assertive outreach function into our adult community teams we constantly review how best we can support those who have severe and enduring mental

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EDP: Mental health trust boss admits staff report should have been handled differently

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Nicholas Carding of the EDP reports: A governor of the mental health trust has said the publication of the Alexander report should have been handled more openly and honestly. The report, written by Marie Alexander, acting clinical education lead for the trust, was written in 2014 following surveys of staff. Sue Whitaker, who is also

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EDP: In depth: Extracts from the report into mental staff and their views on changes

Campaigning, Community Crisis, Dangerous, Kept in the dark, NSFT Cuts, Press, Questions for the Board / By

We’ve been called liars, trolls and mental health extremists. We say we simply told the truth and fought for decent mental health services. Read the story from inside NSFT and make up your own mind. How was this allowed to happen? Why haven’t the CCGs funded mental health properly? How were all the warnings ignored?

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EDP: Revealed: Damning contents of staff report into problems within Norfolk and Suffolk’s mental health trust

Campaigning, Community Crisis, Dangerous, Kept in the dark / By

Campaign supporters should buy the EDP today. We need to support high-quality investigative journalism which has played a key role in holding Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) to account, as it did at Mid Staffs, in the absence of any meaningful response to the crisis in mental health services from the Department of

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EDP: Norwich MP calls on Prime Minister to intervene over secret mental health report

Campaigning, Community Crisis, Dangerous, Kept in the dark, NSFT Cuts, Press, Questions for the Board / By

Norwich South MP Clive Lewis used his first outing at Prime Minister’s question time at lunchtime today to urge the release of the report into the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) which he said raised “serious questions about patient safety and care, due to cuts to services”. He told MPs that the “duty of

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Kept in the Dark: EDP: Mental health trust rejects efforts to reveal damning report

Community Crisis, Dangerous, Kept in the dark, NSFT Cuts, Press, Questions for the Board / By

The EDP reports: The region’s ailing mental health trust has refused to release a highly-critical report containing the views of some of its staff, claiming that doing so would stop workers from raising issues in future. Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust was placed in special measures in February and is also under investigation by

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EDP: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust’s use of controversial out of area beds rockets by 87%

Bed Crisis, Dangerous, Financial crisis, NSFT Cuts, Press, Questions for the Board / By

Mental health patients in Norfolk and Suffolk are increasingly being sent to beds across the country – despite pledges to reduce the practice. Sending patients out of area has cost the trust £530,000 so far this year. Out-of-area placements saw an increase in bed days from 381 in April to 713 in May – a

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EDP: Mental health trust spent record amount on agency staff

NSFT Cuts, Press, Questions for the Board, Recruitment Crisis, Special Measures / By

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

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