Mental health chiefs have put in place long-term plans to tackle failings highlighted by the latest inspection report which branded the service "inadequate".

The Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) has been explaining what it is doing to address the concerns raised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Some MPs and health experts have suggested splitting Norfolk and Suffolk mental health provision into separate counties.

The CQC report, from April, said "significant cultural changes" need to be made to the county's mental health service - and rated the NSFT as inadequate.

The trust was visited by CQC inspectors between November 2 and December 29 last year - its first inspection since January 2020, when it showed some improvement.

Officials found many of the front-line staff to be hard-working, caring and desperately keen to make a difference.

But a catalogue of failings saw the trust downgraded once more. These included:

  • Safe levels of staff not being consistently maintained
  • Ligature points not being removed in a timely manner
  • Waiting lists not being managed
  • Staff not being provided with sufficient training or senior supervision
  • Management not ensuring that lessons were learned from patient incidents and deaths

Speaking at the time of the report being released, chief executive Stuart Richardson said: "We fully accept the findings of the report and know we need to improve and do so quickly."

Reporting to the Suffolk County Council health scrutiny meeting on Wednesday (October 12) NSFT said: "The trust recognises that the scale of our improvement challenge requires a long-term, prioritised programme of work to deliver and sustain positive change.

"The trust’s commitment to sustainable improvement is underpinned by the principles of openness and transparency in order to build the trust of our service users, our staff and stakeholders."

At the heart of its improvement campaign is the working together for better mental health improvement programme - which outlines a number of ways the trust has been and is looking to improve.

The programme focuses on five "Strategic Improvement Themes" that are "long-term initiatives to embed sustained improvement".

The themes cover culture, governance and leadership, safety, service offer and timely access.

The programme also sets out a three-phase plan to improve the service which began with "addressing the basics" which was up until August this year, "sustaining improvement" to October 2023 and "continuous improvement and innovation" from October 2023 onwards.