Nikki Fox, Health Correspondent of the BBC, reports: A woman said she was “very angry” after her elderly mother caught Covid-19 following a move to a hospital hundreds of miles away. Kay Cantell said her mother Kathleen, 73, was transferred from Norfolk to Darlington in September. “I was very angry to think that she’s gone […]
BBC News: Covid-19: Patient gets virus after 240-mile hospital move Read More »
Tom Bristow of the Eastern Daily Press explains: I have been writing about problems at our mental health service for this newspaper since 2012. In that time, I have sat through inquests of those let down by the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) and interviewed many grieving and angry families. I’ve also followed the
EDP: Opinion: Why we wanted to get hold of emails from NHS’ communications bosses Read More »
Dominic Gilbert of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Urgent mental health-related incidents attended by police officers have almost doubled in four years as pressures on the 999 service grow. Coinciding with the ‘radical redesign’ and ruthless cuts to mental health community, crisis and home treatment teams and beds; the closure of assertive outreach and homeless
EDP: ‘The system is broken’ – emergency mental health 999 incidents double Read More »
Robert Nesbitt retires as ‘Company Secretary’ at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) this week on a fine salary and pension. In many ways, the career of Robert Nesbitt exemplifies all that has gone wrong at NSFT. Before the merger which created NSFT, Robert Nesbitt was ‘Director of Community Engagement’ at Suffolk Mental Health
Farewell Robert Nesbitt, ridiculously-titled ‘Company Secretary’ Read More »
Mariam Issimdar of the BBC reports: Norfolk and Suffolk’s mental health trust is in the top five in the country for sending patients out of area for care. Last year more than 350 adult mental health patients were sent out of the county for treatment by the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT). The BMA’s
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
Guardian: NHS child mental health services are failing the next generation, say GPs Read More »
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
Denis Campbell of The Guardian reports: The number of specialist mental health nurses has fallen more than 10% over the past five years, the Guardian has learned, putting the care of rising numbers of patients at risk. The loss of one in 10 of the entire mental health nursing workforce in England has occurred mainly
The Guardian: Number of mental health nurses falls 10% Read More »
Nick Carding of the EDP reports exclusively: Campaigners say their “worst fears have been confirmed” after it emerged that the number of unexpected deaths of mental health patients in the region is continuing to rise. Figures published by the region’s mental health trust show more patients died unexpectedly in the first half of this financial
Nic Rigby of the BBC reports: A mental health patient died after a “failure” to respond in a “timely way” by a stretched health trust team, a report says. The Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust report said there were “serious capacity issues” with its crisis resolution team. It says another death occurred after a patient
BBC News: Mental health death after Norfolk and Suffolk trust failure Read More »
We challenged Gary Page, the Chair of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), to publish NSFT’s data on unexpected deaths after his report to the NSFT Board stated he was “concerned” at the increase in unexpected community deaths from 95 in 2013-14 to 130 in 2014-15. On the same day Gary Page refused to publish,
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)
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
Ellis Barker of the East Anglian Daily Times reports: 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 the average number of deaths, including in accidents and suicides by people known to professionals to
A brave whistleblower tells Nikki Fox of the BBC that the crisis has not gone away; that the demand for mental health services still far exceeds clinical capacity; that the management of Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) appears to have little understanding of the scale of the problems. The Norwich South MP, Clive
Kept in the Dark: Video: BBC News: Cuts, Crisis and Cover-up at NSFT Read More »
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
NSFT – A Warning from History: “Assertive Outreach was simply airbrushed out” Read More »
A damning report’s highlighted the challenges facing NHS staff looking after some of Norfolk’s most vulnerable patients. Unmanageable workloads, intolerable pressure and insufficient resources are just some of the issues raised in interviews with staff at the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust. They argue a 40 million pound savings programme has decimated the service –
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
EDP: Mental health trust boss admits staff report should have been handled differently Read More »
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?
EDP: In depth: Extracts from the report into mental staff and their views on changes Read More »
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
