A Home for Life?
| Published date | 01 June 2000 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200000016 |
| Pages | 23-25 |
| Date | 01 June 2000 |
| Author | Alison Giraud‐Saunders,Rob Greig |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
A Home for Life?
Alison Giraud-Saunders
Senior Development Manager
Rob Greig
Director, Community Care Development Centre, Institute for
Applied Health & Social Policy, King’s College London
Focus on…
Introduction
In most areas there are plans for reconfiguration of
NHS trusts. This is due partly to development of
primary care trusts (PCTs) and partly to concerns
about NHS trust numbers and management costs. In
some places the proposals are for learning disability
and mental health services to combine into specialist
trusts. Some of the reasons are:
■ambiguous reference in The New NHS (Depart-
ment of Health, 1998a) to specialist mental health
and learning disability trusts: some interpreted
this as separate specialist trusts for the two
services and others as combined trusts (references
to learning disability services and PCTs were
also ambiguous and have not been clarified in
subsequent guidance)
■professional links which some learning disability
psychiatrists and psychologists have with mental
health services
■the strong strategic focus on mental health, which
has pushed the NHS to address organisational
options for these services, but lack of a comparable
focus on learning disability.
Active consideration of the options for learning disability
services has sometimes been lacking: their inclusion in
proposals for mental health trusts has simply reflected
current management structures or administrative conve-
nience. But are mental health trusts the natural ‘home for
life’ for learning disability services?
Range of NHS learning disability services
Views on options may be coloured by beliefs about
the services which the NHS should provide for people
with learning disabilities. Signposts for Success (Depart-
ment of Health, 1998b) described the range of health
needs experienced by people with learning disabilities
and set out a clear agenda for improvements in health
services – in terms of both general health and specialist
learning disability services (Box 1).
This agenda deals with health in a broad sense as
well as with health needs (such as mental health
problems, physical disabilities and sensory impair-
ments) known to be more prevalent in people with
learning disabilities. Signposts emphasised the
importance of addressing the whole range of health
needs, with a partnership approach embracing people
themselves, families and the wide variety of services
The Mental Health Review Volume 5 Issue 2 June 2000 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2000 23
Good practice in health services for people
with learning disabilities
HEALTH EDUCATION, HEALTH PROMOTION,
GENERAL HEALTH SERVICES:
■health education and promotion targeted at people with
learning disabilities, using different forms of communication
■health checks to pick up on general and specific health
needs
■training and support for primary, community and
secondary health services to help them meet the general
health needs of people with learning disabilities.
SPECIALIST LEARNING DISABILITY HEALTH SERVICES:
■promotion of access to general health services
■meeting specific health needs of people with learning
disabilities which cannot be met by generic health
services
■support, advice and training for family carers, social care
and general health services.
Box One
To continue reading
Request your trial