Aidan Thomas, chief executive of the mental health trust

Suffolk: Mental health trust to slash inpatient bed numbers

By Lizzie Parry health reporter Thursday, October 25, 2012
12:16 PM

MENTAL health inpatient beds in Suffolk are expected to be slashed from 150 to 117, as part of a radical redesign of the service which will see 177 frontline jobs axed.

The figures, revealed in an internal document seen by the EADT, show 33 beds are likely to be cut over a four-year period.

It comes as Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Aidan Thomas admitted some patients are already having to be sent out of Suffolk and Norfolk for treatment.

But he said clinicians are confident that the redesign could reduce pressure on beds.

The mental health trust is proposing to axe around 500 jobs by 2016 – in Suffolk 177 frontline posts are at risk, from a pool of 821.

Bosses are hopeful compulsory redundancies will not be required and said inpatient beds will only be cut when there is evidence they are no longer needed.

Mr Thomas said the 250 clinicians involved in the service redesign are looking at preventative measures which could be put in place to stop people becoming very ill or getting to a point of crisis, as well as using treatments which give patients more choice.

Acknowledging the trust does not manage patients with some particular health conditions as well as it could, for example people with personality disorders, Mr Thomas said too many patients are being admitted to wards when they could be treated in the community.

He said: “One way we could save more is by centralising our inpatient beds but we are not doing that. We are making sure that every locality - West Norfolk, Central Norfolk, Yarmouth and Waveney, East Suffolk and West Suffolk - has inpatient services for all ages of adult.”

The trust has around 4,100 whole-time equivalent staff. However the cuts are planned to come from a pool of just 2,130 frontline staff.

Back office services faced cuts and redundancies when the former Norfolk and Waveney and Suffolk mental health trusts merged at the start of this year.

A 90-day staff consultation is under way.

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4 comments

The Nicholson challenge is supposed to be about productivity improvements not slashing services. So, Aidan Thomas proposes to reduce the number of doctors and nurses by a disproportionate one third and to slash services to the vulnerable but to leave the number of paper-pushers unchanged despite a reduction of 20 per cent in budget.

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Adrian

Thursday, October 25, 2012
Whilst treating patients without institutionalising them is an admirable goal, these cuts in services have more to do with the Tories taking money from the ill, the weak, the disabled and the poor so that they can hand it out in tax cuts to their wealthy chums. Voters will punish them for that in the next General Election.

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Johnthebap

Thursday, October 25, 2012
Why does the Board and Governors of Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust believe it has even the slightest chance of winning bids in the 'any qualified provider' world after four years of cuts to the quality and quantity of front-line services to the public, with 2.9 bureaucrats in 'corporate and support services' per in-patient bed? Or 12.1 bureaucrats per consultant psychiatrist? Or considerably more than twice as many bureaucrats as grade six nurses? Strangely enough, local GPs, commissioners and tenders ask about services delivered by clinicians to patients, not the amount of time and money wasted by powerpoint presentations and endless meetings. Come on, patients, commissioners, MPs, councillors, governors and journalists, do your jobs and hold these people to account!

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Adrian

Thursday, October 25, 2012
There is a well-known saying that states you can judge a society on how well it looks after its most vulnerable members. Clearly our society is disintegrating around our ears.

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Origami Penguin

Thursday, October 25, 2012