Individual Service Funds offer the opportunity for flexible, person centred responses by providers. But in order to achieve this flexibility, commissioners need to break down larger block contracts to make funds available.
Here, Nick Burton looks at an evaluation of such a disaggregation of funds that took place in the London Borough of Southwark.
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For an Easter/Spring special, Sarah Carr looks at research into how pets can help people with long term conditions but how researchers may miss this in interviews.
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A positive self concept has been associated with psychological well-being, peer acceptance and self-confidence, but how do people with mild learning disabilities view themselves?
In this, his debut blog, Alex Leeder looks at a qualitative study that set out to provide us with a deeper understanding of how adults with learning disabilities think about themselves and how practitioners could help them to think about this more positively.
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Qualitative methods engaging and involving people with learning disabilities are becoming more established in the published media, but there is still room for improvement.
In her debut blog, Victoria Smillie looks at an exploration of these methods which sets out to understand how qualitative methods such as interviews and focus groups, are represented in the published journals.
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Martin Webber takes on a systematic review about choice and decision-making in health and social care by people with disabilities and long term conditions and, among other things, finds relevant evidence for personalisation and inspection.
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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.
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Jeanne Carlin examines a study looking at how direct payments to ‘suitable persons’ might work for people with dementia, their carers and practitioners.
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People with learning disabilities need to be able to talk about sexuality, sex and relationships, but often this opportunity is denied or is heavily influenced by existing social and cultural norms.
In this, her debut blog, Michelle Gregory looks at a paper which reports on how one self advocacy group tackled this issue and how they disseminated their findings.
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Gerry Bennison explores a study on support planning by user led organisations and wonders about the implications for personalisation and equality of access to social care and support.
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Although the research base is small, it does strongly suggest that the attitudes of support workers can be key influencers of outcomes for people with learning disabilities and this would seem to be an entirely reasonable assumption. Here, Louise Phillips looks at a study which set out to not only explore the attitudes of a number of support workers in one service, but also to consider whether existing attitude measurement scales capture the range of attitudes expressed.
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