Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South, was right to describe it as a “national scandal”. As he said, “you can’t have thousands of deaths without knowing how and why.”
It is clear that NSFT is not fit for purpose and patients, and their families, are being failed. This latest report is a damning indictment of an institution which is simply incapable of reforming itself.
This hasn’t happened overnight; this has been years of failure with four failed Care Quality Commission inspections and countless lives lost. In a joint letter issued last year, we urged the Government to intervene after 140 doctors signed a letter to its chairman, saying they “lack confidence” in its leadership and calling for “a major change in the operation and performance of the Trust.”
The current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Steve Barclay, is a Conservative MP just over the border in Cambridgeshire, and is now having a second go at the role. Two other recent Health Secretaries, Thérèse Coffey and Matt Hancock, nominally represent Suffolk Coastal and West Suffolk, areas which have been so badly failed. Indeed, Conservative MPs currently cover all but one of the 16 constituencies that make up Norfolk and Suffolk.
Yet, despite the years of failure, damning report after damning report, and all the lives that have been lost, the Government refuses to intervene. Families in Essex will, rightly, have a public inquiry into the failings at their local trust. People in Norfolk and Suffolk will wonder how bad things have to get before they are offered a step towards justice too.
How many more reports like this do we have to read until NSFT runs out of road? How many more families have to suffer before things change?
Now the Government’s rapid review into inpatient mental health care is published, they finally have to start putting patients and our communities first. They need to stop kicking the can down the road on patient safety and reform mental health services so they are fit for patients and their families.
Indeed, we need more than sticking plasters to save our mental health services. Labour have pledged to transform provision right across the board: guaranteeing mental health treatment within a month for all who need it; recruiting thousands of new staff across the country; putting an open access mental health hub for children and young people in every community and providing specialist mental health support in every school; bringing in the first ever long-term, whole-Government plan for improving mental health outcomes, and giving mental health a long-overdue fair share of funding. This is the change we need.
A General Election can’t come soon enough, but in the meantime, the Government and the local Conservative MPs that are supposed to advocate for their residents can’t keep hiding away. It is time for them to stand up, put long-suffering families first, and end this national scandal.
