The region's troubled mental health trust has been praised as providing "gold standard" in two areas of its work.

The Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust has received gold standard certification for the training and support it offers new starters and for its work experience provision.

The plaudits, which have come from national NHS bosses, recognise that the work in these areas exceeds the standards the organisation expects.

The status has been awarded to NSFT for its preceptorship programme - a scheme which helps integrate newly-registered health professional and international nurses into the trust.

It comes after the trust was also recently given this recognition for the career guidance it offers to people on work experience.

Tumi Banda, interim chief nursing officer at NSFT said: "This is a great recognition of how hard our preceptorship programme team have worked to ensure newly-registered staff are supported to provide safe and effective patient care.

"It further demonstrates the strength of our learning and development programmes.

"Last month we also received a gold standard quality award for our work experience."