Kirsten Lawson presents the findings and recommendations of the recent National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death #TreatAsOne report.
[read the full story...]
Nick Burton presents a recent literature review about the right to legal capacity to consent to sex for people with learning disabilities. He highlights a number of important questions that staff need to consider so that they can support people with learning disabilities to have healthy sexual relationships.
[read the full story...]
People with learning disabiilties may be on multiple medications and be on them for long periods of time. They need access to the best possible support to help them make decisions about their medications. In this post, we look at an action research study that offered training to people to see if it improved their knowledge and their capacity to consent.
[read the full story...]
Today we have a debut blog from Nick Burton, Regional Operations Manager at Mencap. He reviews a new multi-agency report that provides guidance for services working to reduce the risk of choking in people with learning disabilities.
[read the full story...]
Background The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) were introduced in 2009 following the Mental Capacity Act (2005). The safeguards were put in place to be used in situations where adults had been assessed as not having the mental capacity to make informed decisions about aspects of their care or treatment in care homes and hospitals. [read the full story…]
Last year, we posted a guest blog by Pauline Heslop, a researcher at the Norah Fry Research Centre, who set out the alarming findings of a confidential enquiry into premature deaths of people with learning disabilities. The enquiry found that people with learning disabilities die significantly younger in England and Wales than people without learning [read the full story…]
Background Last week, we posted about the BIDs research, which provided a great deal of insight into the current approach to making best interests decisions under the Mental Capacity Act (2005). The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) were introduced into the act and came into force in 2009 to ensure that where people who may [read the full story…]
Background The Mental Capacity Act (2005) provides a legal framework for assessing capacity in individuals. Where an individual is shown not to have capacity to make a specific decision at a specific point in time, it also provides a framework for decisions to be made on behalf of that person, in that person’s best interest. [read the full story…]
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 came into force in England and Wales in 2007 to provide a legal framework for decision-making on behalf of people who cannot make decisions themselves. We have posted previously about the lack of practical knowledge of the working of the Act amongst learning disability community teams and pointed to articles [read the full story…]
Earlier this week, we posted about a study by Dr Tuffrey-Wijne and her colleagues which described the process of the development of guidelines to support decision making about disclosure or non-disclosure of bad news about life limiting illness to people with learning disabilities. That study was part of a broader programme of research that has [read the full story…]
