The government is planning a “dramatic reduction” in the number of people with learning disabilities kept in hospitals in England, care minister Norman Lamb says.
The NHS currently funds hospital care for 3,400 people with learning disabilities.
Mr Lamb – announcing the results of a government review into the Winterbourne View scandal in the Commons – said all such hospital placements would be reviewed by 1 June 2013.
Where such care was found to be “inappropriate”, patients would be moved to “community-based support” no later than June 2014, he added.
He said he felt “shock, anger, dismay and deep regret” about the treatment of vulnerable people with severe learning disabilities at Winterbourne View.
Many of its patients should not have been there in the first place and the story was “the same across England”, he added.
The full article available on BBC News website. An obvious concern to anyone reading it will be the quality, level, and range of ‘community-based support’ that will be made available to meet the intended future requirements…