Mental health trust's data so 'chaotic' it cannot say how many patients died in its care
Record-keeping at one of the country's worst-performing mental health trusts is so "chaotic" that it cannot be determined how many patients have died in its care, according to a new report.
A review into Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT)'s mortality data has branded it inconsistent, unclear and incomplete.
According to the trust's own data, 11,379 people who had been cared for as an inpatient or under community services had died while under their care, or within six months of being discharged, in the last five years.
However, the trust points out that number would include natural causes, and does not equate to deaths relating to poor care.
But the new report, carried out by accountants Grant Thornton states: "Based on the information made available to us, we are unable to provide assurance over the mortality data reported at the trust. "The system is unclear and uses multiple systems to record and produce the data. These are a mix of applications, with some manual processes used to categorise and transform the data. "There is no overarching documentation of the process followed and we saw no clear audit trail of the data as it moved through this process."
The report's other findings also included:
The trust did not have a consistent reporting standard - in eight consecutive board reports, it changed how it presented the information six times;
There was also confusion over whether to classify deaths as "expected or unexpected", with the report calling it "not clear or auditable";
The trust was criticised for not gathering enough detail on causes of death, meaning that more than 77% of deaths were recorded under a generic category;
Senior management at the trust admitted that clinical staff had "limited faith in their data and do not use or analyse it in a structured manner";
Some patients included in the deaths had not been seen for up to nine years before they were officially discharged by the trust.
NSFT has long been struggling - last year it was slammed by the health watchdog, which rated it inadequate and served it with a "warning notice" to improve - and doctors have called it 'unsafe'.
For years, the families of those who lost loved ones in the care of the trust have campaigned for change.
Caroline Aldridge, whose son Tim died in 2014, said it was obvious that the trust had lost track of the people it was supposed to be looking after.
She told ITV News Anglia: "These are our children, our partners, our parents. And it's as if nobody gives a damn about whether they died.
"The messages I've received from other bereaved families is that our loved ones don't count.
"They were failed in life, and then their deaths aren't even counted.
"These are our loved ones. And from these figures they seem to be dying in ever larger numbers and the system is only focused on covering its backside, making itself look good instead of listening, learning, changing."
The trust said it accepted the findings of the report and would implement the recommended changes.
But it also argued that more guidance was needed nationally to ensure that mortality data was collected accurately across the board.
Stuart Richardson, chief executive of the trust, said: ""We welcome the independent Grant Thornton report published today and accept its recommendations in full... We are very sorry that the trust has not previously had the systems and processes in place for the collection, processing and reporting of mortality data that would be rightly expected from a high performing organisation.
He added: "Data quality, performance reporting, and governance all form vital elements of the improvement work that is well under way across the organisation – which was recognised by the Care Quality Commission with an overall improved rating in February 2023."
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