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The prescribing of psychotropics for people with intellectual disability needs to be addressed.

New website aims to bring clear and simple advice on rights to people with learning disabilities

John Northfield

People with learning disabilities have faced a range of barriers when attempting to negotiate the legal system. Public law is complicated but this new guide hopes to provide clear, accurate advice in a range of areas,
The guide, called ‘Know Your Rights’ has been broken down into six main themes:

  • Housing
  • Social and Health Care
  • Making Decisions
  • Money
  • Fair Treatment
  • Protection and Liberty

Each section has a clearly written explanation of what the law covers in that area, and broadly what it says.  There are practical examples as well as links to further sources of more detailed information.

The hosts of the site point out that they want the site to be

relevant and useful as a starting point when faced with practical problems.

You can visit the site here: Know Your Rights

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Written by

After qualifying as a social worker, John worked in community learning disability teams before getting involved in a number of long-stay hospital closure programmes, working to develop individual plans for people moving into their own homes. He worked for BILD, helping to develop the Quality Network and was editorial lead for the NHS electronic library learning disabilities specialist collection. This led him to found the Learning Disabilities Elf site with Andre Tomlin as a way of making the evidence accessible to practitioners in health and social care. Most recently he has worked as part of Mencap's national quality team and also been involved in a number of national website developments, including the General Medical Council's learning disabilities site.

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