Nicholas Carding, Health Correspondent of the EDP reports: A shortage of permanent nursing staff at several mental health wards in Norfolk has today prompted concerns over patient safety. Directors of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) will discuss staffing issues at a meeting in Norwich tomorrow, with a senior manager warn-ing the problem poses […]
15th October 2015 Despite family pleas for appropriate treatment, a long term user of Norfolk’s mental health services cut her own throat today. Visited by a Social worker yesterday, she was “placed on the waiting list for assessment under the Mental Health Act” because when last seen she was observed to be suffering harrowing hallucinations
Carer’s letter to the Guardian: ‘Will it be my relative next?’ Read More »
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
EDP: We’re at a turning point, says Norfolk and Suffolk mental health chief Read More »
The BBC reports: Spending on sending Norfolk and Suffolk mental health patients outside the two counties has risen four-fold in a year, new figures show. The annual report for the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust says it spent £3.3m on placements outside the area in 2014-15 compared with £800,000 in 2013-14. It says this was
BBC News: Spend on patients out of area up 400pc Read More »
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
EDP: Four-fold increase in bill to send mental health patients out of the region Read More »
Join us on Monday 2nd November 2015 for our second anniversary public meeting in Norfolk. Our meeting is taking place at the University of East Anglia in Lecture Theatre 1, 5.30-7.30 p.m. There is a location map below and you can download a campus map here. Our guest speaker is Owen Jones, influential thinker, newspaper
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),
EDP: Eight areas of concern found at one ward in Norfolk hospital Read More »
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
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
EDP: Norwich MP calls on Prime Minister to intervene over secret mental health report Read More »
“Norfolk and Suffolk NHS mental health trust which serves my constituency is refusing to publish the so called ‘Alexander Report’ into its operations. The report, which I’ve seen, raises serious questions about patient safety and care, due to cuts to services. “Does the Prime Minister agree with me that the duty of candour should apply
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
Kept in the Dark: EDP: Mental health trust rejects efforts to reveal damning report Read More »
Michael Scott has announced a further £36 million of cuts/savings at Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) on top of the £44 million cuts/savings of the radical redesign which directly led to NSFT’s inadequate rating by the CQC and Special Measures. That’s a total of £80 million of cuts/savings over eight years but, as
BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust plans £36m savings Read More »
Yet again, the Chair of Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), Gary Page, demonstrates that NSFT is incapable of genuine transparency, as he tries to hide the devastating impact of its calamitous radical redesign and refuses our appeal for the Alexander Report to be published. Of course, we haven’t received any response to the
Kept in the Dark: NSFT blocks our appeal against refusal to release the Alexander Report Read More »
‘Unprecedented failings’: ‘Firefighting to Keep Patients Alive’ An exclusive investigation of the crisis in mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk on the national News at Six and Ten on BBC1 and the BBC News channel. Isn’t it shameful that the Board of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), led by a Chief Executive
Video: BBC News Exclusive Investigation – ‘Firefighting to keep patients alive’ Read More »
Nic Rigby of the BBC reports: Cash for future mental health provision in Norfolk and Suffolk has “fallen short” of what is needed, prompting a dispute with an NHS trust and a funder. Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust said funding offered by central Norfolk clinical commissioning groups (CCG) does not meet the “volume of demand”.
BBC News: Norfolk and Suffolk mental health funding plan prompts dispute Read More »
