Campaigner: Mental health 'deaths crisis' getting worse

A campaigner in Norfolk says the "deaths crisis" at the county's mental health trust is getting worse.

Bereaved relatives met the mental health minister, Maria Caulfield, to discuss failings at the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT).

The trust says it is on a "rapid, and much-needed journey of improvement".

Mark Harrison, from the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk, said: "We judge people by what they do, not what they say."

Members of the campaign group met Ms Caulfield and other MPs in Westminster on 12 March and demanded an independent public inquiry into the trust.

It came after a report last summer which found that more than 8,000 mental health patients had died unexpectedly in Norfolk and Suffolk between 2019 and 2022.

At the meeting, it was agreed Ms Caulfield would meet bosses at the NSFT. The health select committee will also be asked to conduct an inquiry into the trust as part of a broader public inquiry.

But Mr Harrison said he had little confidence anything would change.

"The deaths crisis is just out of control and it's accelerating," he said.

"We have been doing this for 10 years. Every time somebody promises to do something, it doesn't come to anything."

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Source: BBC News, 20 March 2024