Nottingham NHS trust gives ‘guarantee’ of improvement in care after 2023 attacks

The NHS has given a “guarantee” it will learn from its mistakes after coming under fire for its treatment of Nottingham attacks killer Valdo Calocone. 

Calocane was being treated for paranoid schizophrenia, but a report has found the Nottingham Healthcare NHS foundation trust missed opportunities to reduce the risk to the public. 

Two students, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, were killed in the stabbings along with school caretaker, Ian Coates, in June last year. Calocane was given a hospital order in January and is indefinitely detained at a high-security hospital. 

NottinghamshireLive reported that on Tuesday 8th October, senior trust leaders told Nottinghamshire County Council’s health committee they were learning from the errors made in the past.

Jan Sensier, from the trust, said: “I can guarantee we’ve learnt from mistakes and are working on our systematic failures. 

“We are striving to ensure mental health support will be there and in the right way. We are very confident we can put those things in place to minimise the risk.” 

The nursing and quality director at the trust, Diane Hull, said the psychosis team who cared for Calocane were being worked with and were more closely examining how much of a threat patients were not only to themselves but others as well. The trust is also looking at the process of discharging patients, especially those who demonstrate similar traits to Calocane. 

The trust was unable to entirely rule out another incident happening which councillor Johno Lee labelled as “unacceptable”, adding: “How in this day and age can people not get mental assistance?” 

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The chair of the committee, Councillor Nigel Turner, made it clear that it was important to recognise services are not improved overnight but changes must start now.

 “We’ve got to give the trust a fair chance to let them improve services, and judge later,” he said.

The Care Quality Commission watchdog is carrying out regular small-scale visits to check and provide feedback on the trust’s progress. 

Featured image via Nottinghamshire Police