Norfolk and Suffolk NHS trust deaths report 'watered down to spare bosses'

A critical report into how a mental health trust mismanaged its mortality figures was edited to remove criticism of its leadership, the BBC has found.

In June, auditors Grant Thornton revealed how the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) had lost track of patient deaths.

But earlier drafts included language around governance failures that were missing in the final version.

NSFT and Grant Thornton said the changes were due to fact-checking.

A number of drafts of the report were produced, with the first dated 23 February this year.

The first version described "poor governance" in the way deaths data was managed, with governance also being called "weak" and "inadequate".

But many of these critical words were missing from the report released to the public, with "governance" also being replaced with "controls", according to leaked documents.

After losing her son Tim in 2014, Caroline Aldridge has been highlighting what she and others claimed had been the trust's undercounting of deaths.

"I think people need to know what was removed and what was changed, because I suspect that the first report is a lot nearer to the truth," she said.

Ms Aldridge added: "It takes all responsibility from governance, removing the words 'inadequate', 'poor', 'weak' governance, removing significant pieces of information that's not factual accuracy.

"We cannot have people watering it [the report] down when it's about deaths."

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Source: BBC News, 29 August 2023