March for Mental Health: Saturday 16th January 2016, Norwich city centre, 11 a.m.

We will be marching for mental health through Norwich city centre on Saturday 16th January 2016, assembling on the steps of the main entrance to Norwich City Hall at 11 a.m. We organised this march in response to a large number of requests received by the local media and our campaign. Mental health is now […]

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Inquest into the death of Christopher Higgins concluded today: Coroner reports requesting changes to protect the lives of mental health patients in the future

Christopher Higgins was a 36 year old man, who in the last few weeks of his life suffered from his first, but acute, mental breakdown. In those last weeks, his family tried every avenue to get Christopher the help he needed. Christopher’s mental state deteriorated significantly and in the early hours of 25 June 2013,

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EDP: ‘Tell my family I am sorry’ – the first words of mental health patient Christopher Higgins after fall which would prove fatal

Dominic Gilbert of the EDP reports: The heartbreaking first words spoken by Christopher Higgins after he suffered what were to be fatal injuries in a fall at a mental health unit, have been heard at an inquest into his death. When he went to his aid, Mr Higgins said: “Tell my family I am sorry.”

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EDP: Mental health patients in our region are being failed by the government, says MP

Having our campaigning local media and one MP who genuinely cares about mental health makes such a difference. Annabelle Dickson, Political Editor of the EDP, reports: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health services would have almost £70m a year more if they were treated in the same way as physical health, the Norwich South MP has claimed.

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Kept in the Dark: NSFT’s Board won’t face the public 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

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Video: News Ways of Shirking: Couldn’t run a bath?

The announcement of the new Director of Research is imminent. The favoured candidates are said to be involved with private hospitals, practice extensive ‘timeshifting’ and to enjoy astonishing salaries of between £150,000 and £250,000 per year from the NHS alone. Neither has a PhD. But both have defended the management of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS

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EDP: Figures show that mental health funding in Norfolk and Suffolk is not keeping pace

David Powles of the EDP has been investigating whether mental health has been receiving its fair share of NHS funding. The EDP has discovered that despite increasing demand and mental health services being rated Inadequate by the Care Quality Commission and Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) being in Special Measures, the unaccountable commissioners

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EDP: Union backs Mental Health Watch campaign – and highlights ongoing concerns in Norfolk and Suffolk

David Powles of the EDP reports: Bosses of the trust used their recent AGM to proclaim of turning a corner, but Ms Corlett says while some things have improved – there’s a long way to go before staff feel that is the case. She explained: “A lot of staff still feel angry about how change

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EDP Front Page Exclusive: Number of deaths at Norfolk and Suffolk mental health service surges

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

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EDP: Mental health survey’s ‘damning’ findings to be used to hold Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Trust to account

Andrew Hirst of the EDP reports: The Stepping Forward survey results presented in Ipswich at the Suffolk User Forum event was intended to show how far the NSFT had improved in the view of its service users after being placed in special measures earlier this year. Although the trust has agreed measures to improve since

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BBC News: Mental health death after Norfolk and Suffolk trust failure

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

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Health Service Journal: The worrying truth about mental health services: The King’s Fund on NSFT’s failure

Helen Gilburt, a fellow in health policy at The King’s Fund, writes: The example of Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust provides a stark reminder of the risks associated with undertaking whole-system transformation at scale and pace. To pre-empt increased financial risk and deliver efficiency savings, the trust engaged in delivering a vision of implementing recovery-orientated

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EADT: Unison at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Trust backs King’s Fund’s warnings over mental health funding

Andrew Hirst of the East Anglian Daily Times reports: Unison at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Trust backs King’s Fund’s warnings over mental health funding. Unison at the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Trust said today’s findings of the King’s Fund’s report “came as no surprise and bears out a lot of the concerns that staff have

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Kept in the Dark: Artist’s Impression of chart showing increasing unexpected deaths among those who rely on NSFT

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,

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Healthwatch Suffolk: Meeting on 18th November 2015 at East of England Co-op Education Centre, Ipswich IP4 1JW

Healthwatch Suffolk and Suffolk User Forum have organised a meeting to give initial feedback on their survey of those who rely on mental health services in Suffolk: “Our initial survey results show that in some key areas services have not improved since the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust was placed in special measures by Monitor”

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Norwich Evening News: Norwich mother hanged herself weeks after overdose

Peter Walsh of the Norwich Evening News reports: A mother of two was found hanged in her own home less than three weeks after she took an overdose, an inquest has heard. The inquest heard that as a result of a review held following Miss Brickley’s death the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust is looking

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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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NSFT claims it has enough beds… so WHY DID A PATIENT SLEEP IN THE CORRIDOR LAST NIGHT?

If Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has enough beds as it claims, why was a patient forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the corridor of Waveney Ward at Hellesdon Hospital last night? What would the CQC think about that? Shameful.

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