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msinekot

Why is it backward? Whim really - but it could signify the backwardness of the Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in their attitude to service user involvement.

One of their flag wavers is their ‘Service User Council’ but this, in my opinion and that of other users - members of the Council, is tokenism of the worst kind (although all kinds take their place on the cusp of fraud).

I have some inside knowledge as I was an ASW representative on the original group in the mid nineteen nineties. It was always chaired by a member of hospital management but the intentions were then, for it to become a true user led and run Council.

What I’m told (by a Council member) happened in the interim is that a new senior manager at the hospital took over the running of the group and since then it has been tightly led and controlled by the trust with one or two compliant members going along with it all. In fact, the Council only debates and acts on agenda items set by the trust management, in line with trust policies (unless of course there is an item which is carried through on the next agenda from an item initially set by the trust).

In addition to this the ‘Service User Council’ only admits to membership those who have been referred to the trust in the past three years thereby excluding all users who are seen in primary care or who are survivors of treatment at the hands of the trust.

When, at conferences etc, mental health bodies from other parts of the country are told that Norfolk no longer has a user led organisation, the trust representatives will refute this, waving their ‘Service User Council’ around as evidence this is inaccurate.

I, and the others I have spoken to believe this is a travesty of service user involvement and it should be known as such to all those other organisations to whom the trust boasts of having its ‘Service User Council.’ This mental health trust badly needs educating about “Nothing About Us Without Us.”



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