Month: July 2019

It was announced on Wednesday 17 July that the NHS has decided to stop funding the automatic investigation of all killings by mental health patients. This announcement took many people totally by surprise, and in the case of families bereaved by mental health homicide, shock and horror.  Making Families Count member and founder of the influential charity Hundred Families, Julian Hendy is quoted in the Guardian article which blew the lid on this astounding decision by NHS England.  You can read the article in full here: Cuts to study of killings by mental health patients ‘put people at risk’ In response …

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This is the third of a series of blogs in which the members of Making Families Count write about their personal journey and why working with MFC means so much to them.  This blog features MFC Director Jan Sunman. I became involved with Making Families Count, after the death of Connor Sparrowhawk who died whilst in the care of Southern Health Foundation Trust. I was invited to join the team by Julie Kerry, (then lead investigator at NHS England South for the Thames Valley area). Julie brought together a group of families with experiences of having lost loved ones and …

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This time last week I was at the Patient Safety Congress in Manchester. I had an excellent time and met so many interesting and impressive people. It was also an opportunity to do a lot of networking (which is always so valuable) and meet up with people I’ve worked with in the past and now seldom see. It was an impressive event. Really well run, really well organised and incredibly well attended. There were over 1000 participants and almost 450 delegates, presenters and speakers. Over 2 days I went to a hugely varied number of presentations and talks and while some of …

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