The past few decades have seen a gradual shift of provision of services for older people from residential care to community-based care in the UK and other high-income countries. ‘Ageing in place’ is a widely accepted and supported discourse. In practice, receiving care at home enables older people to stay in a familiar environment, and [read the full story…]
Sophie Holding publishes her debut blog on a recent systematic review which finds that independent housing and support has great potential to improve outcomes for both homeless and non-homeless populations with serious mental illness.
[read the full story...]
The move away from long stay hospital settings to community settings is long established in the UK.
Here, Victoria Smillie looks at an evaluation of a community living initiative from the Republic of Ireland which set out to chart the experiences of those who took part in the move.
[read the full story...]
Gerry Bennison examines an Icelandic study where four women with learning disabilities use life histories to challenge the historical, institutional accounts of their lives.
[read the full story...]
The Bubb report has now been published. It recommends a new commissioning framework for services provided for people with learning disabilities and/or autism who are currently in inappropriate hospital units.
Here we take a look at the recommendations and ask if it is enough to bring about the change that is so clearly needed.
[read the full story...]
Lumos, the children’s charity and Change a national human rights organisation led by disabled people have been working together on a project to help close institutions for disabled people across central and eastern Europe. The latest publication from the project was the result of a visit to institutions in central and eastern Europe by the [read the full story…]
As long ago as 1994 Emerson and Hatton produced a review of UK literature on the outcomes for people with learning disabilities leaving long stay institutions (Emerson E & Hatton C (1994); Moving Out: Relocation from Hospital to Community) which involved 2,350 service users. The findings of this review of international studies nearly twenty years [read the full story…]
Stress associated with working to support people with learning disabilities has been reported as a factor in staff burnout. This review of literature aimed to investigate whether there was a relationship between organisational climate and staff burnout. The search identified 21 articles which were included in the review. These were separated into two categories. The [read the full story…]
National policy in England has seen people with learning disabilities who were once residents of long stay hospitals move into community services. There have been many evaluations of these moves, locally and nationally. The authors of this study were interested in measurable factors such as quality of life and mortality. They looked at 521 adults with [read the full story…]
The researchers in this study set out to look at international comparisons at the European level in the health conditions and health risk factors of people with learning disabilities. They looked at people living in fully staffed residential services compared with those living in unstaffed family homes or independent houses with no formal support. The [read the full story…]
