Kathy Chapman, director of operations for Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health Trust.
picture by Adrian Judd
for EDP
Public could have say on mental health cuts plan for Norfolk and Suffolk
Anthony Carroll
Friday, March 1, 2013
8:59 AM
A public consultation could be held on controversial plans to cut mental health services in Norfolk and Suffolk.
The Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust launched a consultation last year with staff and partner agencies on its proposals to cut 502 posts in Norfolk and Suffolk – prompting fears that front-line doctors could be cut by a third.
More than 700 people responded to the trust’s consultation – which ended last month – with opinions expressed on how it could continue to provide safe, effective services within its available funding.
But now managers say the wider public could be given a chance to view their concerns and thoughts on the proposed cuts.
Kathy Chapman, the trust’s director of operations, said: “We are also discussing our proposals with a joint health overview and scrutiny committee for Norfolk and Suffolk county councils and these discussions include plans for public consultation.”
Overall, the mental health trust is planning to cut 502 out of 2,128 posts and 20pc of its inpatient beds by 2016 across Norfolk and Suffolk in order to balance its books.
The organisation hopes to avoid any compulsory redundancies through natural wastage, voluntary redundancies and retraining staff.
The proposed cuts are a result of the trust facing up to the prospect of cutting 5pc from its budget every year over the next four years because of a reduction in NHS funding.
It is feared part of the plans could see about 100 jobs going on the east coast and all acute beds closed at either Carlton Court Hospital in Carlton Colville or at Northgate Hospital in Great Yarmouth.
Bob Blizzard, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Waveney, has campaigned to save the beds.
He said: “People and patients have a right to have their say.”
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12 comments
Reading some of these comments brings to mnd a quote by Marcus Aurelius: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
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Haymarc
Sunday, March 3, 2013
If only Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust had a strategy. It has been doing the same arbitrary cuts you describe and now decides to further reduce senior doctors and nurses by a third and the number of beds by 20%. There is no strategy, all there is are the cuts - not even job descriptions, populations, demand estimates. The numbers are conveniently round, 33% here, 20% there, etc. To call their documents amateurish would be unfair to amateurs. At the same time, the one-time administrators, now calling themselves managers, have enjoyed 'promotions', new job titles and salary increases of over 50% in the case of at least Board member, while services are cut and staff salaries frozen or reduced by de-banding. Now the 'Directors' have PAs as the doctors lose secretaries capable of typing their letters, arranging clinics and getting the medication right in correspondence. The Trust has no been forced to abandon calling these cuts a 'radical redesign'. Meanwhile all the 807 penpushers keep their non-jobs. Mid-Stafford?
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Adrian
Saturday, March 2, 2013
At least the mental health trust has a strategy and is being transparent about it. The NHS trust I work for is facing the same financial imperatives but doesn't seem to have any plan other than freezing and cutting posts in an arbitrary fashion with little consideration for patient safety.
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Steve H
Friday, March 1, 2013
Yesterday My mum lost her link worker due to staff cut backs.The link worker was an amazing support to her within her local Doctors surgery. I would like to thank her for the support and advice she gave to my mum. Like i said earlier much to our disappointment we no longer are entitled to having a link worker because of cuts. This means that if my mum has a crisis in the future we have no where to turn for support. We will have to go through her GP then forwarded to the crisis team up northgate, which im sorry to say are useless. These job cuts are disgusting. There is no recovery team as such or support for anyone with mental health problems unless you are an extreme case. I am appalled and i feel hopeless now for my mum.We don't ask for much from Norfolk and suffolk mental health trust, but the least they could provide is Community Psychiatric nurses or Link workers.
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Mady1
Friday, March 1, 2013
Yesterday My mum lost her link worker due to staff cut backs.The link worker was an amazing support to her within her local Doctors surgery. I would like to thank her for the support and advice she gave to my mum. Like i said earlier much to our disappointment we no longer are entitled to having a link worker because of cuts. This means that if my mum has a crisis in the future we have no where to turn for support. We will have to go through her GP then forwarded to the crisis team up northgate, which im sorry to say are useless. These job cuts are disgusting. There is no recovery team as such or support for anyone with mental health problems unless you are an extreme case. I am appalled and i feel hopeless now for my mum.We don't ask for much from Norfolk and suffolk mental health trust, but the least they could provide is Community Psychiatric nurses or Link workers.
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Mady1
Friday, March 1, 2013
Hadrian Ball is paid £180,000 per year from the public purse to be the Medical Director of Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. Why does it take the Royal College of Psychiatrists to tell the Trust Board and commissioners that the proposed cuts breach guidelines and are unsafe and detrimental to patient care? What is the man doing for £3,450 per week from the taxpayer?
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Adrian
Friday, March 1, 2013
mythbuster - how on earth do you imagine these people get appointed to such cushy roles in the first place without the right connections through lackeydom? The top roles are nothing more than political appointments and that ethos cascades its way throughout the bureaucracy with which they surround themselves. I believe it's called "jobs for the boys", but without the gender bias.
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Mr Cameron Isaliar
Friday, March 1, 2013
There may be something in your comment, Adrian, but to expect the exec team and managers, with their extensive empires, to consult on their own future would be a step too far. Front-line staff will simply have to become more efficient, per the EEAS' example. And if that doesn't work rest assured it will be the clinical staff to blame, and to address that situation the board would have to appoint some very expensive consultants to carry out a review and recommend further imrovements, while being paid "off payroll" of course.
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Mr Cameron Isaliar
Friday, March 1, 2013
BTW I don't think repeatedly singling out and naming exec team etc adds anything to the debate, in fact it detracts from the wider issue. I agree that one of the measure that could be looked at, even as a gesture because it won't make anywhere near the dent in the money needed, could be very senior people volunteering a pay cut. The gap in pay between front line clinical staff and senior people has widened massively since foundation trust status. It does add to the sense that we most definitely are not in this together. Don't forget though, that if the trust fails financially Monitor will sack the board, but impose their "own people" on the Trust. We will all then be in a far, far worse position than we are now. although I disagree with many of things that are happening, I fail to see how the Trust being run by a load of Jeremy Hunt's lackies would improve the situation?
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mythbuster
Friday, March 1, 2013
its ok hit the disabled then mental health then pensioners then scroungers on benefits then the staff it will then allow those who have money to do what they want and the power to run the country so know one can have a say i thought world war 2 sorted him out but i was wrong......sorry being sarcky but it seems the unfortunate get hit first
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daylo
Friday, March 1, 2013
This reduction is a cut of 24% of clinical staff. The trust anticipates seeing the same number of patients that it currently does. However you dress this up, how can 24% fewer staff provide the same level of care. Don't forget this is 24% on top of cuts that had already taken place in 2011 & 2012. It seems as the the likes of Monitor and the DOH only care about the Trust balancing the books and "safety" ie. whether anyone dies, rather than the quality of care that people receive. So we can paper over the cracks by saying that all is ok because 100% of people are seen within a certain period of time following discharge from hospital. So someone sticking their head around the door for 5 minutes meets the target, as does someone visiting for a couple of hours - talking, making sure practical things are sorted (bills, food etc), relapse prevention etc. With 24% fewer staff which kind of visit do you think we'll be under pressure to "provide". The 24% is whole time equivalent staff, so the actual number of individual staff will be higher eg. 2 part time staff will need to be made redundant to equal 1 whole time equivalent. This is going to increase the local unemployment figures and drain more money out of the local economy. The trust provides most mental health services in the whole of norfolk and suffolk. where else are we supposed to go and work?
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mythbuster
Friday, March 1, 2013
Maybe there should be a public consultation on Kathy Chapman's 100K salary or the £750K p.a. cost of the executive Board members? It will be interesting to see how the public views sacking more than 500 front-line staff, including reducing senior doctors and nurses by at least one third and slashing beds, but keeping all 807 bureaucrats in corporate and central services. It isn't public yet, but, in a highly unusual move, the Royal College of Psychiatry has intervened in the last week, writing to the Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust Board and commissioners over serious concerns that the proposed cuts will be highly detrimental to patient care and safety. Makes you wonder what the Medical Director has been doing, doesn't it? How can there be a full or frank consultation when every doctor working in adult or old age services received a letter warning them their job was at risk this week with sackings by the middle of June? The Trust is attempting to bypass democratic scrutiny and present a fait accompli to any consultation. The clinician-supported claims are a sham and will be exposed as such and Kathy Chapman, the architect of the 'radical redesign' will be forced to resign, along with Aidan Thomas; the Medical Director, Hadrian Ball, will retire. Otherwise we face our own version of Mid-Staffs. Kathy Chapman, Hadrian Ball and Aidan Thomas have completely lost the confidence of the vast majority of staff excepting the parasitic pen-pushers whose jobs they seek to protect.
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Adrian
Friday, March 1, 2013