mental health

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”.

If a person who has a learning disability is banging their head, being silent, or laughing it is not always easy to understand what is happening with and to them. In this article, Jim Blair (Learning Disability Nursing Project Lead at the Royal College of Nursing and Clinical Advisor for Learning Disabilities at the Queens Nursing Institute) considers the ways people with learning disabilities can be supported to access the healthcare treatment they deserve but denied all too often.

71% of autistic adults in England aren't getting the support they need. This could mean up to 327,000 autistic adults aren’t getting help to do things other people take for granted, like socialising, managing money, or getting out and about.

In 2016, the UK government launched a groundbreaking drive to reduce the use of psychotropic drugs for people with autism and learning disabilities. But recent figures show that while prescribing rates for antipsychotics have fallen since the campaign’s launch, antidepressants, hypnotics, and stimulants have all risen.

The first scientific study of compensatory strategies — techniques to camouflage autism — has been published.

Reasonable adjustments are adaptations and accommodations that should, in theory, minimise disadvantages faced by disabled people in education, employment, and housing, as well as services such as shops, hospitals, and banks. Darren Devine discusses how reasonable adjustments could look for people with a learning disability - but how far can they address health inequalities? 

MSP Daniel Johnson found his life to be chaotic and difficult to cope with. Now diagnosed with ADHD, he understands the symptoms that have affected him since he was a child. Speaking to Darren Devine, he reflects upon how receiving a diagnosis - and appropriate medication - has changed his life.  

Grainne Eloi, Interim Head of Mental Health Services at Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust, discusses how new technology reduces unnecessarily long hospital stays.

The Care Quality Commission has pledged to review restrictive interventions (restraint, prolonged seclusion, and segregation) in a variety of settings.