Tag Archives: mental health

500 jobs to go in mental health services – Norfolk and Suffolk – Where is the Care?

Suffolk and Norfolk mental health shake-up concerns

SMHP's chief executive Aidan Thomas Aidan Thomas, the chief executive of the trust, hopes change will improve the service

Concern has been raised over the pace of a major shake-up of mental health care in Suffolk and Norfolk.

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is looking to cut up to 500 staff as it tries to make savings of £40m.

The Trust told the Norfolk and Suffolk scrutiny panel, meeting to oversee plans, that the concerns were being addressed.

Panel chairman Alan Murray said members broadly backed the need for a reorganisation.

The new strategy includes addressing people at an earlier stage of their illness to try and avoid the need for care beds to be used.

Bed cuts blow for dementia families

Published on Sunday 27 January 2013 16:00

Mental health workers and carers have hit out at plans to cut the number of beds available for dementia patients in the Lancaster district.

Families of dementia sufferers also reacted angrily to suggestions that new technology could bridge the distance gap if patients are sent to a new unit in Blackpool saying: “You can’t hold hands with an iPad”.

Mental health service provider Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust is proposing two options as part of streamlining measures, which would see the closure of the Altham Meadows Assessment Unit in Morecambe.

Change in the law is needed to protect vulnerable people

Care workers also deserve better pay and training to prevent future cases of abuse and neglect

Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP has introduced a new bill to include a new offence of corporate neglect in the Health and Social Care Act 2008. Photograph: Martin Argles/Guardian

Calls to press ahead with plans to hold corporate bodies – boards, directors and senior managers – to account for any abuse or neglect that is found to have taken place in care homes and hospitals are no surprise. However, all those who work in the sector will know that unlimited fines and criminal sanctions is not enough.

Speaking in parliament last week, Paul Burstow MP, the former care services minister, introduced a new bill to amend the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to include a new offence of corporate neglect. He said the “new law would act as a deterrent” and all health and social care professionals will be hoping this is true. They will also probably be pleased by the apparent pace of change, coming so soon after the findings of the Winterbourne View investigation were published.

As an abuse lawyer who regularly handles claims on behalf of children and vulnerable adults who have been resident in care homes or other institutions, I have heard too many accounts of abuse that for some reason or other have been unheeded by those in charge. This is unacceptable and a change in the law is urgently needed to address this.