Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT)

Long wait for appointments, incorrect information,not being notified of my care, staff not helpful, have put in 2 complaints against them, one official and one i wasnt asked if i wanted to make it official. The response to the official complaint was bog standard and information still not correct

Whenever (if your lucky) you get an appointment you constantly feel rushed. They want to roll you on to somewhere else. They give diagnosis to people but then do nothing to treat them. Awful.

Slow in giving you an appt and then when you do eventually see someone for help they are already to discharge you from secondary mental health services. Awful experiences with this service. They have no care apart from moving people off their list as soon as possible.

It seems to be pot luck on clinicians, they have different methods, even overheard one of them say we give the good cop bad cop approach.

Constant changes in nursing staff resulting in sporadic care. No contact and when finally do get around to return calls the staff are so pushed they cannot respond appropriately. As a carer I am appalled at the service. We are left to support vulnerable people with severe issues.

The NSFT as an organisation is disjointed, lacks communication between different teams, and simply can not cope with the demand for services. Within the teams I have met some amazing staff who are passionate about their work and really care about improving services. I have also found others who are disheartened, exhausted and have lost the compassionate elements of their role.
There is often a long wait for services as the organisation doesn’t run ‘smoothly’ or communicate to create a more productive service.
Compared to other trusts I have met, worked with or been a service user within, NSFT if unfortunately trailing far behind.

The only people who have been able to help have been Suffolk mind and a little from Suffolk family carers.

I have had 3 experiences of mental health, one I had to explain over and over to get my husband help. Given cheap tablets that do not work. Not much follow up. With my nephew it was explaining and explaining, everyone came up with a solation, then gave up when it didn't work, it took years and an expel from school before he got some sort of help. I have a son who has mental health problems when I can get him to go for help he put onto a waiting list of at least 3 months, he believes he does not need help so does not keep asking for it and he has been turned down any help without even accessing him. No one seems to know what to do and no one seems to care. If you look around people are having all sorts of problems. A lot more then ever was, you need to bring structure back into life, discipline, Sundays back so everyone can have a break from the week. There is no weekends anymore, world has got to busy and too greedy, you might think I'm going on but think about it.

As a professional working in safeguarding I work with NSFT a lot. My experience of working with NSFT is poor. In my experience NSFT do not have enough training in regards to safeguarding. My experience with NSFT includes poor communication, lack of insight into safety planning/goals, lack of knowledge of safeguarding, not communicating when they know safeguards are open and there are concerns, not gathering enough/correct information and risky discharges. NSFT must do better.

My son has been registered with the Waveney Youth Team for appx 2 years, although he will be 27 in a few weeks and clearly should have been transferred to an adult service some time ago. He is bi-polar and did not receive appropriate oversight of his condition / medication for several months and received little support from the youth team - phone calls are not responded to or returned. However, in the last few weeks the service has responded to a decline in his mental health and his increasing suicide risk. The only part of the organisation that has been responsive and supportive is the carers team and in particular the carers lead, (name removed) who has gone over and above in trying to resolve some of the issues with accessing a service