Learning Disability news

"We can’t tell local councils how they should run their social care," says the govt in its long-awaited offical response to the latest LeDeR report.

Matt Hancock receives pre-action letter from Equality and Human Rights Commission after "consistently failing patients with learning disabilities and autism".

Over 2,000 people with learning disabilities or an autism diagnosis continue to live in hospital settings, with over 3,000 "restrictive interventions" occuring over a one month period.

Research by charity Ambitious About Autism found 46% of parents report their child(ren) waited over 1.5 years from referral to receiving an autism diagnosis. In light of this the charity has created a toolkit to support parents in supporting their children. 

Centre for Mental Health evidence review finds school seclusion, restraint and exclusion can increase trauma in children with mental health difficulties.

People with a learning disability are seven times as likely as their non-disabled peers to be lonely, according to research from Mencap. This Christmas, the charity is calling for urgent action to be taken to tackle the loneliness epidemic faced by people with a learning disability.

Today Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) condemns the “horrific reality” of conditions and treatment under which many young people with learning disabilities and autism are detained in mental health hospitals, “inflicting terrible suffering on those detained and causing anguish to their distraught families”.

Edel Harris will be the next Chief Executive Officer of Royal Mencap Society. She is currently CEO of Cornerstone, one of Scotland’s leading charities, which provides a range of services to people with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, autism, and dementia.

NHS chief Simon Stevens has announced that a new taskforce will be set up to improve current specialist children and young people’s inpatient mental health, autism and learning disability services in England. News of the new taskforce is not the only initiative announced this past week to improve the experience of autistic children/teenagers in inpatient settings. 

Police figures obtained by the charity United Response show that fewer people are being charged or prosecuted for disability hate crimes despite ongoing increases in reports across England and Wales.