On 28th March, NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) published new guidelines with the self-explanatory title “Learning disabilities and behaviour that challenges: service design and delivery“
The accompanying press release read: “Care for people with learning disabilities should be close to home wherever possible… NICE is urging councils and health bodies to make sure that people with learning disabilities can access well-designed services and staff with the right skills so they do not need to move away for care or treatment.”
Have a look yourself. It is hard not to think that NICE is setting the bar very, if not impossibly, high. I think we’d all like to see ‘well-designed services and staff with the right skills’, but in the end it is hard not to think that it will all come down to funding and local authority priorities.
With regard to social care, NICE’s role is to develop quality standards that can be used for quality improvement by social care providers and commissioners, and to define what service users and carers can expect of high quality social care services. We live in hope…