{"id":145472,"date":"2025-09-15T17:41:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T17:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/145472\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T17:41:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T17:41:15","slug":"anger-as-sussex-nhs-trust-rated-among-worst-in-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/145472\/","title":{"rendered":"Anger as Sussex NHS trust rated among worst in England"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757508964_896_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 iMuqLZ hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/7a08e6f0-8fe2-11f0-b986-51c52739b2d9.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Family handout A young woman stands on a beach with her baby. She is looking at it lovingly. \" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 fHZDyi\"\/>Family handout<\/p>\n<p>Ms Betchley (pictured) had a one-year-old son<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">A bereaved relative of a woman from Chichester who died after struggling with her mental health has criticised an NHS trust after it was rated the third worst in the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (SPFT), which specialises in mental health and learning disabilities, was ranked 59th of 61 among the UK&#8217;s non-acute trusts in government data published this week. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Louise Hodgson accused the trust of &#8220;brutalising&#8221; her daughter-in-law, Morgan Betchley, before she died in March 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Dr Oliver Dale, chief medical officer at the trust, apologised to a group of families which has been formed to highlight the themes they have seen across their cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;We are absolutely committed to learning and taking action to improve where it is needed,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;We are working very hard with our staff to make the necessary changes and provide the best quality care to patients.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757508964_896_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 iMuqLZ hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/00933180-8fe3-11f0-b391-6936825093bd.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Family handout A young woman with straightened blonde hair. She is smiling. \" class=\"sc-86c96223-0 fHZDyi\"\/>Family handout<\/p>\n<p>Ms Betchley died two weeks before her son&#8217;s second birthday<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Ms Betchley, the mother of a one-year-old boy, died from a self-inflicted injury at Meadowfield Hospital in Worthing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The autistic 19-year-old had long struggled with her mental health, being admitted to hospital multiple times before her death. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Ms Hodgson said she had been &#8220;gas-lit, brutalised and traumatised beyond despair&#8221; during her care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Jurors at a 2024 inquest into Ms Betchley&#8217;s death concluded hospital staff repeatedly ignored policies and procedures, meaning she did not get the services she needed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Ms Hodgson, who has worked in the NHS for 33 years, said leadership was &#8220;key&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;Time and again this trust&#8230; continues to allow staff to exclude and dehumanise desperately ill young people, thus modelling that to junior staff,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Family handout Ms Betchley (pictured) had a one-year-old son A bereaved relative of a woman from Chichester who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-145472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}