Caudwell International Children’s Centre Opens Today
“First of its kind autism centre aims to dramatically cut diagnosis waiting time” This is the headline today on Sky News introducing an article on the opening of an autism diagnosis centre in Keele, Staffordshire. The headline above an article in the ‘i’ newspaper (sorry, I can’t find it online) reads “Children’s Centre will end […]
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding
Two debates this week in Parliament focused on the crisis in Special Education provision. One particular focus was on the financial strains that a dysfunctional system is imposing on both local authorities and parents, whilst simultaneously setting them up against each other via a failing assessment and appeals processes. Another issue considered was the (rising) […]
Psychiatric Detention under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Concerns over future safeguards.
Warning this is a bit complicated! “The dividing line between the use of the MHA and the MCA DOLS is fiendishly complicated (a senior judge described it as like putting your head inside a washing machine and spin dryer)”. Lucy Series (legal expert, academic and blogger) has just published a thorough but informative blog article […]
ATUs…Chair of Joint Committee on Human Rights writes to Health Secretary
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR), having initially launched a wider inquiry into the detention of young people, is now conducting two separate, more focused, and inter-related inquiries into the detention of people with learning disabilities and or autism in mental health and NHS inpatient facilities. To quote the JCHR website: “As a […]
Angry Reaction to Health Secretary’s ATU Review Proposal
We have previously cited and endorsed journalist Ian Birrell’s scathing articles on the treatment of children and adults with autism and learning disabilities in ‘secure hospital facilities’ i.e. Assessment and Treatment Units (ATUs). Ian has now reacted angrily to Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s commissioning of an ‘investigation’ by the CQC (“yet another review”) Please now […]
CQC reports on State of Care 2017/18.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has just published ‘The State of Care 2017/18‘, its annual assessment of health and social care in England. The report ‘looks at the trends, shares examples of good and outstanding care, and highlights where care needs to improve’. You can find links to the report, plus a summary and an […]
‘Shock’ Report on Mortality Rates
Having recently attended events organised by Public Health England around the topic of how to improve the health and consequent life expectancy of people with a learning disability, and aware of the findings of previous research on the issue stretching back beyond the Marmot Report of 2010, (sadly) I was not surprised by the contents […]
Reaction as Government Proposes Amendments to the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill
The Bill is progressing through Parliament, and reached the report stage this week (21st Nov). Ahead of this milestone, the Government has now published its amendments to the Bill. These amendments are described by Alex Ruck Keene as ‘long-awaited’ in his post on the Mental Capacity Law and Policy website . Thankfully for the lay-person, […]
Minister orders review of treatment of ‘patients’ in secure hospitals
Headline on Sky News website last week (4th Nov): “Review ordered into ‘barbaric’ treatment of patients with autism and learning disabilities More than 2,300 people have been treated in secure hospitals since 2015 where practices include the seclusion of patients”. Please read the full story
Some Brief but Interesting Thoughts on the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill
Legal expert and blogger Lucy Series has just published a brief blog post on the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill. It is brief because she is on holiday – hence the title ‘Some thoughts from the Lakes’! But its brevity makes it eminently readable. Lucy describes her and others’ concerns about the Bill; essentially its lack […]