The acting head of the region's mental health trust says he will be coaching rather than making radical changes during his six months in charge.

Dr Adam Morris has taken up the post of interim chief executive at Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust recruits a permanent chief executive and has set out his aims in his first board report.

Dr Morris has been chief executive at Livewell Southwest, a community interest company providing integrated NHS mental and community health and care services in Devon.

The interim chief said a review of the trust's strategy had begun with an aim to bring clinically-driven change to the trust.

Speaking ahead of Thursday's board meeting, Dr Morris said: "This is about continuing that journey rather than radically changing that journey.

"It's a really credible plan.

"Plans like that don't happen quickly, they take time, they are sustainable when they get there because they have been done in the right way.

"I'm here to support, to coach rather than to radically change what has been going on."

Historically the trust has faced numerous calls to tackle out of area placements. In March 16 patients spent a total of 330 days out of area - the lowest total since October.

But with the national expectation of no such placements days by September, Dr Morris said the trust would be "really testing itself" to meet the deadline.

Dr Morris: "The out of area placements is a symptom, not a cause. It reflects systematic challenges that we all face. They are problems for society as much as they are for individual organisations but what I do know, we have system ownership of that problem.

"We work together as a variety of different health providers and health commissioners and our local health authority to be able to help and deal with those challenges.

"The plans that we have are not NSFT plans, they are system plans. They are ones that we are absolutely signed up to deliver.

"We were able to really share and educate our other colleagues on the issues that we faced in mental health and got an absolute buy in from our system partners to finding collaborative solutions."