South Wilts NHS Mental Health Services

“They got it so wrong and still they won’t say sorry” – MP

Following a meeting with Chief Executive Trevor Jones of the Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire NHS Strategic Health Authority in Chippenham on Friday, Salisbury MP Robert Key has said that the Chairmen of the South Wiltshire NHS Primary Care Trust and the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust should “consider their positions” following the sudden closure of services for mental health patients at Fountain Way in Salisbury.

“If we are to trust the people who are appointed and paid to administer our local health service, then they must be held accountable when things go badly wrong. That was supposed to be the point of the Trusts. We are now told that Salisbury District Hospital should not have commissioned the new buildings at Fountain Way, that the Mental Health Trust should have known that bad policy was being driven through in South Wiltshire at excessive cost and that the Primary Care Trust just went on paying for a service that was doomed because it was not in line with national best practice.”

“A new acting PCT Chief Executive has been brought in, but the web of Trust Board Members remains gloriously intact. What are they for? They have now been told they got it badly wrong in both policy and finance – over several years. I have taken this to Ministers – who have passed the buck firmly to the local PCT and Mental Health Trusts. It is the most vulnerable patients in our community who have taken the hit.”

“I had a very constructive meeting with Trevor Jones on Friday. It is his responsibility to develop the NHS in our region, to check the performance of the local NHS, to deliver new services and implement national priorities.”

“I accept the plan for our future mental health service that is now out to consultation – and I urge local people to get behind it, too. We really do need a fresh approach to the care of those with mental health problems.”

“I urged Trevor Jones to acknowledge the work of the excellent Mental Health Service staff in Salisbury who have operated under great strains. I also asked him to consider favourably new premises for the hard-pressed staff of the Primary Care Trust who work in intolerably crowded conditions in inappropriate accommodation. We depend on these hard-working people and Dickensian attic offices are not good enough for them.”