Patients in urgent need of serious Mental Health services have been let down over the last decade by a cycle of management and leadership failures at the Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trust (NSFT).

Whilst some of the media reports are misleadingly exaggerated, the system needs urgent reform and improvement, and a new culture of transparency and accountability – drawing on an honest and open assessment of the hard lessons from the last 10yrs.

The last thing vulnerable patients need is for mental health to become a party-political football kicked around and weaponised in a general election.

That’s why I’ve got together with Clive Lewis MP to work with all the MPs across Norfolk and Suffolk to ensure the right questions are asked and the right reform proposals put in place.

Having had the NSFT campaigners into Parliament to present the harrowing account of patients let down, and then met the Minister for Mental Health, this week we had in the NSFT themselves, with the ICB senior Leadership Team, to present their Reform Plan to MPs and campaigners before it’s formally approved at their July Board.

We must get this right for the patients and families struggling with debilitating mental health illnesses.

We wouldn’t and don’t treat cancer patients like this. For too long the NHS has treated patients suffering from Mental Illness in a very second rate way.  With often terrible tragic consequences.

This is changing.

See more information on my work on this here.