Healthcare Watchdog Keeps Up The Pressure To Improve Learning Disability Services, UK

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 24 Aug 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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The Healthcare Commission announced that it will visit 48 specialist inpatient learning disability services to examine progress made since its national audit in 2007.

The visits are part of a concerted push by the Commission and other regulatory bodies to raise the standard of care provided to people with learning disabilities.

The Commission last year called for "sweeping and sustained" changes to learning disability services to bring them into the 21st century.

The Commission found that there were unacceptable variations in the quality of specialist inpatient services for people with learning disabilities and that in many, the safety and quality of care was not up to the standard expected of modern services.

The 2007 audit covered 72 NHS trusts and 17 independent organisations providing 638 individual services. The Commission visited 154 services covering 68 of the 89 organisations.

It made 2,548 recommendations to improve aspects of care and has continuted to work with services, strategic health authorities and Monitor to ensure recommendations are implemented.

Services will be given 24 hours notice of a visit. They will be mostly at services not visited during the audit last year, however the programme also includes revisits at 10 services to check on progress since the audit.

The visits, which commenced this week, will mean the Commission has been to services at all 89 organisations that currently provide specialist inpatient learning disability services of this kind.

With this second round of visits, the Commission will carry out checks to ensure standards of care are safe and of good quality for this group of vulnerable people.

Reports for each visit and a summary of national themes and trends will be published on the Commission's website early next year.

Eight specialist services for adolescents were included in the first audit. A report on the audit findings in relation to adolescent learning disability services is published today on the Commission's website.

The report states that young people in these services were generally safe and protected from abuse and that their health needs were met overall. The audit also found that they were well supported by dedicated staff.

However, the Commission found that young people in these services should have more independence and control over their lives and the environment in which they live.

Some services could do more to help young people to develop the skills they will need to live independently. For example, supporting them to shop for groceries, prepare meals or to manage their money.

Not all young people had opportunities outside of specialist adolescent services to socialise with friends or to access education and employment.

Two specialist adolescent services will be inspected as part of the follow-up programme. The Commission will look at how services centre care around the specific needs of young people with a learning disability.

The Commission said it is also working with the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) and the Mental Health Act Commission (MHAC) to undertake a national review of how services are commissioned by primary care trusts and local authorities on behalf of people with a learning disability.

Anna Walker, Chief Executive at the Healthcare Commission, said:

"The audit painted a bleak picture of specialist healthcare services for people with a learning disability. We hope our follow-up programme of work announced today will keep the spotlight on those services so we can look back on this time as a turning point for people with a learning disability.

"If we don't keep the pressure up, we risk being in the same place in the future talking about the same problems. Indeed, I expect to see that services have already improved when we begin the follow-up visits.

"As part of maintaining the focus in this area, all NHS learning disability services will this year be assessed against key indicators focusing on the quality of services for individuals, as part of the annual performance assessment.

"But providing services is only one part of the picture. That's why we are working in partnership with CSCI and MHAC to carry out a review of how services are commissioned on behalf of people with learning disabilities."

The audit was designed involving people with a learning disability, family carers and people working in the sector. It aimed to develop an accurate picture of specialist services for people with learning difficulties and promote improvements.

The follow up programme of visits will follow the same design as the first phase of the national audit.

Click here for a national overview of the 2007 audit results

Services for young people and adolescents - Supplementary report to the national audit of specialist inpatient healthcare services for people with learning difficulties in England (pdf 157kb) (opens new window)

Information on the Healthcare Commission

The Healthcare Commission is the health watchdog in England. It keeps check on health services to ensure that they are meeting standards in a range of areas. The Commission also promotes improvements in the quality of healthcare and public health in England through independent, authoritative, patient-centred assessments of those who provide services.

Responsibility for inspection and investigation of NHS bodies and the independent sector in Wales rests with Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW). The Healthcare Commission has certain statutory functions in Wales which include producing an annual report on the state of healthcare in England and Wales, national improvement reviews in England and Wales, and working with HIW to ensure that relevant cross-border issues are managed effectively.

The Healthcare Commission does not cover Scotland as it has its own body, NHS Quality Improvement Scotland. The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) undertakes regular reviews of the quality of services in Northern Ireland.

Healthcare Commission