Nottinghamshire NHS trust told to listen to patient complaints after safety concerns

Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust didn’t always keep patients and the public safe, a review by watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found last month.

The trust treats some of the county’s most vulnerable patients, but the CQC said they faced long waiting lists, a lack of inpatient beds and difficulty accessing crisis care.

The government ordered a rapid review following the conviction of triple killer Valdo Calocane – who killed two students and a former Bulwell Academy caretaker in Nottingham last June – whom the trust had treated previously.

Members of the Nottingham City Council healthcare committee, at a meeting on April 11, told senior figures at the trust that they should have heard patients’ concerns before the CQC inspection.

Coun Georgia Power (Lab) said: “It wasn’t a surprise because we have heard all the things that the CQC raised time and again from patients. If we’ve heard them, you absolutely have.

“If complaints had been dealt with, we wouldn’t have got to this point.”

She read a list of reports which had previously been sent by coroners to the trust called Prevention of Future Death Notices, which had recommended that improvements were made.

One report was issued following the death of Alexander Lyalushko, a man with anxiety and depression, whose GP requested that he was seen by local mental health services.

The trust didn’t respond to the request for reasons which haven’t been explained, and he took his life just over a month later in January 2023.

Another report into the death of Michelle Whitehead, 45, in 2021, painted ‘a very worrying picture’ of care at the Millbrook Mental Health Unit in Sutton.

Although the cause of the brain damage which caused her death wasn’t established, the trust admitted there was a medication error with sedative, and staff were delayed in noticing she had lost conciousness.

The trust has previously apologised and promised to learn from these tragedies.

Coun Maria Joannou (Lab), who represents Bulwell on the city council, told the committee there needed to be a ‘complete change of culture’ at the trust, and there was ‘a disconnect between top leaders and users’.

She told senior trust figures: “You need to start listening a lot more to what users are saying.”

Diane Hull, the executive director of nursing, Allied Health Partnerships and Quality, apologised for the trust’s failings.

She said: “The people of Nottingham deserve good quality mental healthcare with compassion and kindness – that hasn’t been consistently carried out.”

She added that the trust welcomed all complaints to learn from its failings, saying: “We are listening to our biggest critics.”

The CQC review also raised concerns about Rampton Hospital, a secure Nottinghamshire psychiatric hospital run by the trust.

A third part of the review into the care available to Valdo Calocane will be published in the summer.

The trust’s overall rating is suspended while the full review is completed.