Patient at Bulwell hospital warned phone would be confiscated if they tried to complain

Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has faced a catalogue of serious concerns over care and was rated ‘requires improvement’ by watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in 2022.

The organisation is responsible for mental health services in Nottinghamshire, including secure hospitals.

The trust also had Nottingham triple killer Valdo Calocane under its care a number of times before he stabbed and killed three people in the city centre last summer.

During a Nottingham City Council health scrutiny meeting on May 16, chair Coun Georgia Power (Lab) raised further concerns about Highbury Hospital in Bulwell, which offers mental health services.

She said she had learnt a patient was asked to sign a document to say they would not contact Care Opinion, the UK’s independent non-profit feedback platform for health and social care, or the CQC, with negative feedback.

She said: “We know that, certainly recently, patients in Highbury were asked to sign something to say they would not contact Care Opinion – we have evidence of that in 2022 – with negative feedback or they would have their phone taken off them while detained.”

Coun Power asked trust officials if they, therefore, believed feedback was effective.

Jan Sensier, the executive director of partnerships and strategy at the trust, said: “We don’t think it is effective at the moment.

“That is why we put in place a whole project around this because we are not listening after our patients.

"We are not looking to see what patterns are and the themes are sufficiently.

“We need to do so much more and we absolutely acknowledge it is not good enough.”

Speaking after the meeting, Coun Power told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “A patient shared an experience where they had tried to share concerns with Care Opinion and the CQC about the treatment they were receiving at Highbury Hospital.

“They were then asked to sign a document that said they would not post on social media.

"What they had done was try to contact the people you are supposed to contact if you feel your care is not appropriate.

“The trust said to us they have got a wealth of information from patient complaints and Care Opinion – but they don’t use it appropriately.

"We think that is true, that they haven’t been using it appropriately.

“We also know there has been a culture in some areas of the trust – not every area – of preventing patients of making those complaints.”

In January this year, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins MP (Con) ordered a special review of the trust following the Nottingham attacks last June in which Valdo Calocane fatally stabbed univeristy students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and former Bulwell Academy caretaker Ian Coates.

Calocane had previously been treated for paranoid schizophrenia by the trust and had been under its care several times before the incident.

The CQC has now published two parts of the special review with a third section, focusing on how the trust cared for Calocane, due in the summer.

Other past problems at the trust include staff suspensions and evidence of staff falsifying records and assaulting patients.

In March this year, the issues prompted Nottinghamshire Council to suspend entering into a new contract with the trust pending the outcome of the special review.

During the meeting Ms Sensier and her colleague Dr Sue Elcock, medical director and deputy chief director of the trust, said the financial deficit of the organisation has also further grown and needed to be addressed quickly.

They admitted the trust had not listened to external voices enough, but noted it would be engaging in a ‘big conversation’ with its 10,000 staff members working across the organisation to get their thoughts.

They said there had, positively, been a nine per cent fall in its mental health care waiting lists.

An improved crisis telephone line also went live on April 29, they said, which allows for voice messages to be left by people in need of help.