The Department of Health (DH) has published its response to the Winterbourne View scandal. It contains some strong messages about removing the last institutions in the learning disabilities sector as soon as possible and uses Shared Lives in its report giving examples of effective practice.
We have been working with the DH to raise Ministers’ and officials’ awareness about the strong track record of community-based approaches like Shared Lives in helping people labelled ‘complex’ or ‘challenging’ to move out of institutions. With KeyRing, we have published today a short report giving examples of how Shared Lives and KeyRing networks can be used. The report identifies the main challenges as NHS commissioning practices and poor risk management, including a failure to work in partnership with families and weaknessess in the regulatory regime, which the DH proposes to address. The report makes these recommendations:
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All 1,500 individuals to be offered immediately a personal budget (if their care is social care funded) or a personal health budget (if funded via NHS Continuing Care) plus a brokerage and advocacy service.
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Professionals, including NHS consultants and commissioners, need to be educated about non-traditional approaches.
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Regulators to ensure that any care provided for more than a very short period of time demonstrates that it enables individuals to experience ordinary lives, unless there is a demonstrable safety or legal reason why this cannont be achieved.
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Exploring the use of payment by results and social finance investment approaches to bring alternative providers into the market, or to allow double-funding of experimental support packages for short periods.
- Raising the status of people with learning disabilities, in particular through achieving higher levels of employment including employing people in regulatory and inspection roles.
The DH report echoes a number of our recommendations and it is heartening to see that the government has pursued a strong line on this, rather than hiding behind the banner of ‘localism’. Local areas will be able to take a range of locally-decided approaches to closing the Winterbournes, but it’s right that closing them or reducing their use is not seen as optional. Full report: http://bit.ly/QTuhhG.
Escaping the invisible asylum 
It has, to put it mildly, been a long time coming, is all I can say. For years advocates, circles of support, concerned individuals and organisations, have been flagging the inappropriateness of hospitalising someone who is not sick, and whose very hospitalisation creates further challenges for them.