Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust remains 'inadequate'

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust as inadequate for a third time, finding patients trying to take their lives waiting for care.

Dubbed as England's worst performing mental health trust, the organisation was deemed to have repeatedly failed to protect patients, with many left unsupervised in segregation. Furthermore, the inspectorate found a high proportion of urgent referrals downgraded unsafely and that unfilled shifts led to 139 incidents in six months.

First put into special measures in February 2015, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is the only mental health trust in the country to have been put into special measures. It’s ongoing poor performance and latest report have led to mental health charity Mind calling for government action, suggesting having parts of the service taken over by another mental health trust.

One of the main issues highlighted by Paul Lelliott, the CQC's lead for mental health, was managers and leadership teams learning from mistakes, leading to no less likelihood of the same thing happening again. Lelliott said that the trust leadership team had ‘not taken action at the pace required to bring about sustained improvement and to resolve failings in safety’.

The report did note several areas of good practice, and praised staff for treating patients with compassion and kindness, respecting their privacy and dignity and providing support to help service users improve their physical health. Inspectors rated both forensic services and the community learning disability service as 'good' overall. The Dragonfly Unit, which provides inpatient care for children and young people, was considered 'outstanding'.

Antek Lejk, chief executive of the trust, said: "We are obviously disappointed with the CQC's findings, but fully accept their report and its recommendations. Although we have been working hard to make improvements, we recognise that the actions we have taken so far have not resulted in the rapid progress which both the CQC and our trust had hoped for.

"We need to ensure consistent good practice across the trust and bring all of our services up to the standard our patients and carers deserve. Our priorities now will be to resolve ongoing issues around access to services, waiting lists, care planning and staffing levels, while also making sure we have the right systems in place to ensure patient safety at all times. Such wide-scale transformation will take time and will not always be smooth, but we remain committed to making the necessary changes in the right way so that we can ensure our services provide safe, effective care for everyone in Norfolk and Suffolk."