We have received a reply from GMMH regarding our open letter and other complaints received about Tony Warne’s blog post. The reply from the CEO, Karen Howell is published below. As you will see Karen expresses her disappointment that such a complaint was even made. It does not appear that any independent investigation was carried out or the GMMH complaint procedures were followed.

We may take this further and would appreciate your views.

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From Karen Howell to CHARM received 5/12/2024

Dear Tony Baldwinson

I am writing on behalf of the Trust Board in response to your recent correspondence raising concerns in
relation to the Trust Chair’s blog of 3 November 2024.
I was very disappointed to read this as you are aware that the Trust Board are fully committed to
delivering high-quality mental health services for our service users, supporting carers, with a community-
first approach.
I can confirm that as a result of the concerns that have been raised about the Chair’s blog, I have met
with Tony and discussed your concerns and similar concerns raised by others. The concerns have also
been brought to the attention of the Trust Board of Directors and Governors. Tony is sorry to hear that
his blog has caused any upset, as that was certainly not his intention. Tony has been writing his blog
since 2009, almost fifteen years before he became Chair of GMMH in January of this year. He is a
Professor Emeritus in Mental Health at the University of Salford and has worked in NHS mental health
care services since 1975, both as a practitioner, service manager and as an academic. Tony writes his
blog in a personal capacity, and not in the capacity of Chair of GMMH. Nonetheless, Tony fully
appreciates that his blog may be read by many individuals, including patients and service users of
GMMH, and that in producing his blog he is mindful of how the content and language used may be
interpreted. Whilst Tony had absolutely no intention to cause offence in posting this blog or any other
blog, he acknowledges the impact that this blog may have had and apologises for any upset caused.
Tony’s experience and passion for improving mental health services is evident in his leadership of the
GMMH Board and the Board and I continue to be fully supportive of Tony and his leadership. As you
will be aware, GMMH has recently published its improvement plan, which details the actions we are
taking as a Trust to tackle the many quality, safety and governance concerns that have been raised
regarding the Trust’s services. Tony is very much a key part of GMMH’s leadership team committed to
delivering the improvements we recognise are needed to improve mental health services throughout the
Trust and across Greater Manchester. I meet regularly with NHS England (NHSE) and the NHSE
National Team have expressed their confidence in our Board, led by Tony, and our direction of travel to
The Trust is committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults and
requires all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, The Curve, Bury New Road,
Prestwich, Manchester M25 3BL Tel: 0161 773 9121.
achieve the improvements required. In particular, this relates to delivering our three key priorities for
next year:
• Recovery, including taking action to address CQC concerns and continuing on our path out of NHS
Oversight Framework (NOF) 4
• Governance, including the development of a governance structure to support our Recovery Focus
• Aspirations and Strategy, including stabilising the organisation and building aspirations for the
future.
We are working closely with our colleagues at NHS Greater Manchester to seek to improve Mental
Health Services across Greater Manchester. A critical part of that is ensuring that we listen to those who
use mental health services, their carers and families. We are committed to continuous engagement with
our Service User and Carer Voice Groups and you will be aware of our Carer Champions, who help to
improve local services by feeding back what they learn from supporting carers. Tony meets regularly
with service users and carers, as he has done throughout his career, and has demonstrated consistently
that he listens with respect to their voices.
The Board and I have considered the concerns you have raised, and we need the help and support of
all our partners and stakeholders to deliver the best possible mental health services to the people who
need them, so I do hope that you will continue to contribute to our improvement journey going forward.
Karen Howell OBE
Chief Executive Officer

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CHARM has written to Open letter to GMMHT’s Board of Governors and Board of Directors raising our concerns about a blog post that Tony Warne, the chair of GMMHT promoted through his professional Linked-In account and “X” . You can read the blog “A pandemonium of parrots, the revenge of crows, and me” here.

If you want to add your support to our call for Professor Warne to resign from his position as Trust Chair write to the Chief Executive Officer, Karen Howell at Karen.Howell@gmmh.nhs.uk

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Dear Governors and Directors,

It has come to our attention that on the 3rd of November, 2024, Tony Warne, the Chair of Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust posted a blog on LinkedIn and X.

This blog begins as a comparison of parrots who he has tamed and crows who he describes as vengeful birds that bear grudges. He continues by comparing three service users who met him and aired their grievances like vengeful crows. This has caused substantial upset within our membership.

CHARM would like to record our dismay at the way in which the Chair has shown public disdain for the people who use the services of GMMH. We believe he has proved himself to be incapable of compassion or of understanding service users concerns.

We further believe there was no need for him to take their anger at the Trust personally. As he mentions, he was not acting as Chair when the incidents occurred. Yet he has interpreted their anger and frustration as somehow challenging his ‘sense of self’. This is an alarming attitude, given that as a Chair he occupies a position of responsibility. Part of his role involves listening and learning from service user experiences to enable lessons to be learned. His evident lack of humility and disdain for the service users he spoke with indicates his inability to carry out his role.

Following the BBC expose of abuse at Edenfield, the report by NHS England led by Oliver Shanley made its first recommendation as follows:

‘The trust must ensure that patient family and carer voices are heard at every level of the organisation. The trust must respond quickly when people experience difficulties with the services they receive, and make live experience voices central to the design, delivery and governance of its services.’

However, we believe Tony Warne has proven through his actions that he cannot be relied on to listen with respect to service user and carer voices.

We neither wish to be regarded as vengeful crows, nor do not wish to be ‘tamed’ parrots. We are not animals. We wish to be seen as human, afforded respect and have our voices heard.

Given the current lack of good faith that service users and carers have in the organisation this is a grave failure. It also undermines pockets of good work that other leaders have attempted to carry out to improve this breakdown in working relations.

This is simply not acceptable and the online post needs to be taken down immediately. Also, we are concerned that although the CEO has known about this blog since last Tuesday, to the best of our knowledge she has not moved to get Tony to take the post down. Or if she has asked, he has not complied. This is leaving the online post active to still potentially distress people, and damage the reputation of the Trust.

For all these reasons, Charm calls for the Chair to resign from his position and calls on GMMHT to appoint a new Chair.

If appropriate action is not taken we will have to consider withdrawing our support and participation from all GMMH representative bodies.

Regards,

Tony Baldwinson
CHARM

A pandemonium of parrots, the revenge of crows, and me

Blog by Tony Warne promoted via Linked-In and X

“I loved reading about Lily and Margot’s story last week. This was the story of two blue-throated macaws, who decided to go on a bit of a six-day jolly and get away from the hustle and bustle of London Zoo. Lily and Margot fly freely each day, but always return home to their enclosure at the end of the day. On the 21st October, they decided to just keep going. Eventually, they were found in a back garden 60 miles away. Reading the story, I couldn’t help but wonder if Lily and Margot had actively planned their trip, or whether it was a spur of the moment decision. Parrots are quite capable of coming up with a cunning plan and they have the patience of Job when it comes to getting what they want. So, I wondered if they had simply decided they needed a bit of a change, worked out how to do it, and away they went. However, once the zookeepers arrived to try and catch them, Lily and Margot simply flew to the keepers and tucked straight into their fruit and nut treats. I’m sure they knew they were safe once more.

I can speak from many years’ experience, as to how parrots operate. Our parrot, Billy, is well over 35 years old now. He has lived with me for all that time. Whilst he is not as pretty as Lily and Margot, he is super intelligent. He is a brilliant mimic, has a fabulous repertoire of words and phrases, but most all is totally aware of context, mood and presence. If he sees J and I hug, he makes the kissing sound even before we kiss. If he hears the front door open, he will say ‘see you later’. If he sees me walking into the kitchen with a bottle of wine, he will make the sound of the screw cap coming off and the sound of wine being poured into the glass. His favourite music is the blues and he will sing and whistle along to the blues for hours.

Over the years he has changed. When I first got him, he liked to fly about the house, but my goodness, he was destructive. I remember once coming home to find he had flown onto my bookcase, and had systematically stripped all the spines from most of the books. So, I started to clip one of his wings, but this was a real trauma for him and for me. Eventually, I stopped doing this, bought a much larger cage, and he has lived happily in this for the last few years. These days, Billy doesn’t try to escape, even when his cage door is wide open and I’m cleaning him and his cage. It is his secure place.

One of the other ways he has changed is in his acceptance of change. For many a year, if I went away from home for a week or more, when I came back, he would go into a sulk and not speak nor interact for a number of days. Billy would literally turn his back on me and I would be ignored. He would eventually thaw, but it could take a while. These days he doesn’t seem to mind at all and always greets me with a ‘hello Billy’ and a cry of exclamation – like ‘where have you been?’ He doesn’t bear a grudge at all, unlike crows apparently.

John Marzluff, a professor from the University of Washington, has studied crows for over 17 years. His research has shown how crows bear grudges against folk, who they feel have upset or threatened them. Even after many, many years, crows will attack those who they remember harming them, if they see them again. It seems to me that there might be many folk, who display the same behaviour. Last week I came up against three people like that. They appeared to be out to seek revenge for harm that had happened to them and/or their loved one, and harm that had occurred many years ago. Unlike with crows, I happened to be the person in the firing line albeit, I hadn’t directly caused them harm. My sin was simply to work for an organisation that, in their experience, had.

Now for as far back as I can remember, and certainly as a therapist and manager, I have tried to practice unconditional positive regard. Carl Rogers’ concept is easy to understand, but difficult to always put into practice. In a therapeutic sense, it requires the therapist to have a complete and non-judgemental acceptance in caring for and supporting their client, regardless of whatever the person says or does in the therapeutic interaction. Positive regard is not withdrawn even if the person does something, or says something that challenges the therapist’s sense of self.

Last week I experienced a similar challenge (and threat) to my sense of self from a number of different folk. Whilst I no longer seek or receive supervision, I’m thankful to have several very supportive colleagues. Along with the always listening ear of J, their support makes a difference and helps me maintain that sense of unconditional positive regard for those folk, who appear to want to harm me. Their support, and attentive listening, collectively helps provide me with my own secure space. Like Lily and Margot, at the end of the day, last week, I was grateful to tuck into their hypothetical fruit and nut treats.