Mindfulness has been offered as a way to help reduce stress in family and carers but few studies have as yet looked directly at the effects of offering mindfulness-based interventions to people with learning disabilities themselves.
In her debut blog, Leen Vereenhooghe looks at an attempt to evaluate a mindfulness group in an inpatient assessment and treatment unit through the experiences of those who took part.
[read the full story...]
Health Action Planning was advocated in the 2001 White Paper and hospital passports are becoming accepted practice. But what impact are they having on outcomes for people with learning disabilities?
Here Alison Giraud Saunders looks at a systematic review of published research on health records held by people with learning disabilities which looks at this question.
[read the full story...]
Despite an increasing body of research evidence that demonstrates the ongoing health inequalities experienced by people with learning disabilities, there have been few changes in policy and practice.
In her debut blog, Rosalyn Hithersay presents a paper that describes a series of workshops that took place in 2013 with the aim of addressing this shift from evidence to action.
[read the full story...]
Raphael Underwood reports on a thematic analysis of joint crisis plans, which explores what service users with psychotic disorders want in a mental health crisis or relapse.
[read the full story...]
Erstwhile Mental Elf blogger, Ian Cummins, Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Salford University, joins the Social Care Elf to examine a study on the perspectives of service users, psychiatrists and carers on community treatment orders.
[read the full story...]
Alison Turner considers the strengths and weaknesses of a new report which presents the findings of the HSJ Commission on Hospital Care for Frail Older People, asking key questions of commissioners, providers and patients.
[read the full story...]
Sally Adams summarises a new randomised controlled trial in JAMA, which tests a sustained care intervention and post-discharge smoking cessation for hospitalised smokers.
[read the full story...]
The NICE scoping guidelines on multimorbidity now thankfully include people with learning disabilities. However, the original scoping draft specifically excluded them, despite NHS England and the Department of Health commenting on the first draft.
Here, Pauline Heslop, one of the authors of the Confidential Inquiry report and a key campaigner to get people with learning disabilities included in the scope, talks about some the issues this raises.
[read the full story...]
Following our recent post on what has happened since the publication of the CIPOLD Confidential Inquiry report, we joined a tweet chat hosted by WeLDNurses with two of the report’s authors: Pauline Heslop and Matt Hoghton.
It was a really lively hour with some fantastic contributions. Here we present a summary of the comments with some links to information that was mentioned during the chat itself.
[read the full story...]
We know that access to accurate information is crucial if people are to make good decisions about the support they get from services. If someone with a learning disability is admitted to a hospital unit for assessment or treatment for a mental health issue or in response to behaviour that is challenging support services, this can be a particularly difficult and confusing time for all concerned.
In her debut blog, Alison Giraud-Saunders, along with co-author Angela Cole, describes a booklet that she co-authored with the involvement of family members which has lots of key information on the law and people’s rights.
[read the full story...]
