Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk have agreed to work together to ensure the services provided meet the needs of both counties.
The Trust’s Chief Executive, Michael Scott, and Chair, Gary Page, met representatives from the Campaign in July to listen to services users’ and carers’ concerns about mental health services.
They both stressed the Trust encourages feedback from its service users and staff and agreed to meet with the campaign regularly to discuss areas where improvement could be made.
Gary Page said: “We share a common objective with the Campaign to improve the quality of care we provide to our service users. By listening to their experiences as well as those of carers and staff we want to work with the Campaign to address those areas where we acknowledge improvements need to be made.
“In order for this to happen and for a constructive relationship to develop, we would urge it not to personalise the Campaign and to ensure that information presented on the website is both balanced and accurate.”
The Campaign added: “We believe public accountability is central to the effective delivery of public services. While we disagree with the Trust on some issues, we do agree the need to work together for the good of mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk; to focus on specific areas of concern is a good start. The first of these foci is access to mental health services.
“We all agreed that gathering as much data as possible from service users, carers, members of the public, members of staff and indeed other health professionals (be they positive or negative) should help better shape the future.
“We would therefore like to invite people to visit our website at www.norfolksuffolkmentalhealthcrisis.org.uk where we have created an area for experiences, comments, ideas and suggestions. What was great? What could be improved? What needs to be changed? We look forward to reviewing access to the service with the Trust.”