Tom Bristow, Investigations Editor of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Last year the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) went £3.5m over budget on sending patients to beds at other facilities, including private hospitals and out of the area. Its budget for buying beds from other providers is £1m a year. But it used almost […]
Below is a list of the people interviewed in the so-called ‘wide range of engagement meetings with local stakeholders’ during the £58,000 Beds Review. Thirty-nine are senior employees of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT). Five are commissioning bureaucrats. None are service users. None are bereaved relatives. None are carers. None are from patient
Fixed, Flawed Farce: Part 1: ‘No decisions about me, without me’ Read More »
Sabrina Johnson of the Eastern Daily Press reports: Hundreds of people of all ages gathered in Norwich city centre to add their voices to the call for better mental health services and to protest against cuts to the NHS One protester Hazel Van Der Lee, 43, of Great Yarmouth, who had her own experience of
EDP: Crowds gather in Norwich city centre to join March for Mental Health Read More »
Jenny Kirk of the BBC reports: The number of ‘unexpected deaths’ at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has more than doubled in just four years.
Video: BBC Look East leads with our March for Mental Health in Norwich Read More »
Investigative reporter Tom Bristow of the Eastern Daily Press reports: A quarter of mental health beds in Norfolk and Suffolk have been lost in the last four years. While England has seen the number of mental health beds fall by 3,500 since 2012, a drop of 16pc, the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT), which
Beds Crisis: EDP: How 140 NHS mental health beds have been cut in Norfolk and Suffolk Read More »
Geraldine Scott of the Eastern Daily Press reports: No new beds for patients in psychiatric crisis will be made available by the region’s mental health trust, despite concerns being raised by the health watchdog over that a shortage of beds “had impaired patient safety and treatment at times”. We haven’t found a senior doctor at
Geraldine Scott interviews Neil Jewell’s brave family in the Eastern Daily Press: A family has described the “seven year period of spiralling decline” a man suffered before sustaining fatal injuries while under the care of the region’s mental health trust. Neil Jewell, 42, of Philadelphia Lane, Norwich, died on January 17, 2014, while sectioned under
Nikki Fox of the BBC reports: The trust which runs mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk has apologised after an inquest found that neglect contributed to a patient’s death. Neil Jewell, 42, died in 2014 after a series of failures, the inquest said. He had paranoid schizophrenia and was not properly monitored after being
BBC News: ‘Neglect’ contributed to Neil Jewell’s death Read More »
We haven’t been able to publish the devastating review into the shocking death of Neil Jewell as a jury inquest has been taking place. However, we can now publish the Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) into Neil’s death in full. We’d like to express our admiration for Neil Jewell’s family for their determination: they have lived
Geraldine Scott of the Eastern Daily Press reports: More than £500,000 was spent on sending patients under the care of the region’s mental health trust to other facilities in the last month as bosses admit “still too many” patients were being sent out of the area for treatment. Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT)
Below is a selection of the messages we have received since the BBC Panorama programme examining the massive increase in the number of unexpected deaths after the savage cuts inflicted upon mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk: So grateful to make contact and so pleased to learn about the efforts being made to draw
Deaths Crisis: Your comments: BBC Panorama: Britain’s Mental Health Crisis Read More »
Adam Howlett of the Eastern Daily Press reports: A man who suffered fatal injuries while under the care of the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust had run out of medication to treat his schizophrenia, an inquest has heard. Neil Jewell, 42, of Philadelphia Lane, Norwich, died at Ipswich Hospital on January 17, 2014, after
Tom Bristow of the Eastern Daily Press reports: A mental health patient was kept in a police cell for three days in King’s Lynn because no bed could be found for him. A second person needing mental health treatment was detained at Aylsham police station for 36 hours as the region’s mental health service struggled
EDP Front Page: Mental health patient kept in Norfolk police cell for three days Read More »
Nicholas Carding of the Eastern Daily Press reports: A 16-year old has described her stay in a private hospital where former teenage patients had left messages encouraging self-harm and assault on her room’s wall. Her room was completely bare – containing nothing but a sheetless bed and a window. She sat on the bed, mentally
Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust has been fined £366,000 after the death of a patient on a specialist dementia ward. Norwich Crown Court heard how Mrs Joan Darnell, age 78, had been admitted as a patient to the Julian Hospital, on 28 September 2014 on the Blicking Ward, a specialist ward for patients suffering
Deaths Crisis: HSE: Hospital fined after safety failings led to dementia patient’s death Read More »
Christine Cunningham of the Eastern Daily Press reports: A Norfolk and Suffolk NHS trust has been fined £366,000 for health and safety failings after a 78-year-old patient was found drowned in a bath on a hospital ward. Joan Darnell, who had dementia and bipolar disorder, had been taken from her home in Field Grange, Lowestoft,
Nikki Fox of the BBC reports: Mental health campaigners are “incredulous” five beds for children are unused when 20 patients are being treated “out of the area”. Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) created a 12-bed unit in Lowestoft, costing £1m, in September. NHS England said it provides funding to staff seven of the
CAMHS Crisis: BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk NHS mental health facility has empty beds Read More »
Sophie Hutchinson, Health Correspondent of BBC News, writes about the mental health feature on yesterday’s national BBC television news: Mental health trusts in England are still having their budgets cut, despite government assurances they would be funded on a par with physical healthcare, figures suggest. Analysis by the King’s Fund think tank, seen by the
BBC News: Mental health budgets ‘still being cut despite pledge’ Read More »
Look beyond the spin from the Board of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT). The Care Quality Commission (CQC) confirms our concerns about beds, staffing, safety and increasing numbers of patient deaths at NSFT. Not enough staff: We had a number of concerns about the safety of some services at this trust. These included
CQC Report: NSFT ‘Requires Improvement’ but Safety remains ‘Inadequate’ Read More »
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
