Norfolk And Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

The mental health services are broken.

I've had an assessment but I'm waiting for therapy andor medication. They said the waiting list would be a year but it's been three.

I've been really struggling and I've got no support, I don't know what to do. They need more people to work in mental health and for them to get 'hands-on' with people.

I just really struggle to get the care I need. I feel fobbed off by the organisation when it comes to getting support from the AAT and getting access to my records.

I am passed from the customer service team to the AAT team to the data department. This just makes my condition worse.

They just will not communicate with me and are not very sympathetic. There is an attitude across the trust that they do not care and I don't feel they take seriously.

I've used the crisis team several times - the last time was 18 months ago and I thought they were pretty good and helpful.

I'm discharged from Gateway House and transferring to the community team. To get to this point has taken the good part of four years and I've had about seven months of treatment in that time.

My therapist left suddenly with two weeks' notice in 2021 after two years of working with them and I had to wait until 2024 for a new one. In that time I had multiple Care Coordinators, one of which was helpful.

There's not enough doctors or nurses and the crisis team is a joke, they don't care. I won't ... ring the duty desk anymore as they go through the same checklist with you even if you spoke to them the day before - it's process driven, not people driven.

I'm under the mental health practitioners at my GP's but if I tell them anything concerning I get referred back to NSFT. This makes me worse off as I'm left with no support.

I can't go to the GP and the waiting list for NSFT is unknown. So if I'm struggling I'm better off not telling anybody else I get left with no support.

I've been on the waiting list with the community mental health team for at least 18 months and I've not even been told what I'm waiting for. It's poor communication in general.

I have welfare check phone calls which I've asked to be at set times because they were just random before which isn't good when you're not feeling well. It's always a different person so I have to keep explaining everything over and again.

It's not great. Sometimes they sound like they're paying attention, other times ... they're obviously not.

I need psychiatric medication but my GP can't prescribe it and I'm waiting to be assessed so I can have it prescribed. I don't know how long that will be.

Why can't they let the GP prescribe it for a short period and monitor me while I'm waiting? My wife also really needs help but she won't have anything to do with NSFT because of how they've been in the past. She waited years to be seen, missed one call that wasn't scheduled and was taken off the list and told she'd have to go through everything again.

These calls aren't from registered numbers and you don't know when they will happen, they're from unknown numbers or random mobiles. Some staff clearly do want to help but they're stuck in a system where they can't.

I was turned down for counselling two years ago, they said I didn't need it because I hadn't cried enough in the assessment! I'm just not that sort of person, I've been masking for years, people deal with things in different ways and they should know that.

I've used Gateway House and they've been really, really brilliant. I was happy with the medication they gave me and I've recently been discharged from the service which I'm pleased about.

My husband was in end stages of alzheimers disease and was sectioned and luckily got a bed here, where he received the most wonderful care and support through to his eventual passing. I was supported and cared for in the most compassionate and supportive way through his final days.

Rude member of staff on Hamilton court reception .

I have long term PTSD, BPD, Psychosis, Anxiety & Depression. I had a mental health nurse come out to see me, I was promised I would never have to go to Chatterton House after horrendous problems in the past.

My mental Health Nurse, brought a manager out to see me, I found her very rude and she insisted I went to Chatterton House to go to a peer support group. I go to pieces in groups and have had experience of Peer Support and end up feeling sorry for the person which doesn’t do me any good. ...

They said if I didn’t go I would be discharged. No other treatment was offered.

The CPN, had asked that I see a lady Psychiatrist after seeing a Nurse Practitioner in an online meeting with a Nurse Practitioner Stuart who is used in my part of West as a Psychiatrist, which in itself is wrong. He hadn’t looked at any of the paperwork sent in, he got me to tell him my life story from the age of 3 I was in bits after the meeting ended.

He never looked at us once all we saw was from his nose upwards. After the meeting I stuck a knife in my arm the only thing that stopped me harming more was my PTSD dog came over to me and looked at me.

I couldn’t stop the bleeding as I’m on blood thinners, I had to go to my Surgery to have the wound dressed. I was also seen by one of the Red Coats who spent a long time with me.

She arranged calls for the following week. The mental health nurse told me she had been told to discharge all the people she speaks to on the phone.

I also asked her who the Clinical lead was and she told me she didn’t know and I then found out it was the manager who had been out to see me!!! I was told by the mental health nurse that West only had a Crisis line from 9am until 9 pm, I was never given the number. I have since found out from an adult services manager from Chatterton that after 9 pm the Norwich 247 line take over.

I have been told the system that is being used right across the NSFT area is to allow 4 home visits and then offer something like peer support and if you can’t go and say why they discharge you. I have only just received a discharge letter today 141024 my GP hadn’t even had one.

I was told the discharge letters should be sent out before the discharge date. My experience with West NSFT is horrendous and has left me wanting to end my life.

I wish they would disband the NSFT and split it back into two again. It was much better.

A lot has been lost with the amalgamation.