Review finds 418 ‘unnatural, unexpected deaths’ linked to troubled trust
A troubled mental health trust’s internal mortality review has concluded 418 of an estimated 12,503 patient deaths over a four-and-a-half year period were “unexpected and unnatural”.
Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust’s leaders said the findings showed there had been a “much, much smaller” number of avoidable deaths than had been implied by previous reviews and reported by the media in the past.
But the review’s findings were swiftly dismissed by campaigners, who said they had “no confidence” in the new figures, accused the trust of “corporate gaslighting” and renewed calls for a statutory public inquiry.
The review was initiated after a similar exercise by Grant Thornton last June concluded it was not possible to work out how many avoidable deaths there had been because of the trust’s poor data.
A month later, BBC Newsnight reported evidence it had watered down criticism in the Grant Thorton report, with allegations of “weak” and “inadequate” governance in earlier versions of the report removed from the final version. The trust and auditor said the changes were due to “fact checking”.
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Source: HSJ, 18 July 2024