This week a government-funded report has evaluated the financial impact of the Building the Right Support Action Plan. A key finding from the report is that community services may be more expensive than hospital admissions.
The report can be seen here:
And a news item on the report is here:
There are robust processes in place regarding Care and Treatment Reviews that ensure that an admission to a secure learning disability hospital is appropriate and necessary, and that discharge happens quickly. Those in hospitals now are thought to have the most complex needs, making their releases more difficult and costly.
But when does independence become “too expensive”? The cost of an effective discharge must be balanced with the traumatic cost to the person “living” in a hospital, experiencing restrictive environments and restrictive practices.
The article here quotes the NHS confederation stating that a workforce strategy is urgently needed. Jonathan Beebee, Chief Enablement Officer at PBS4 said “It is vital that Integrated Commissioning Boards (ICBs) review the Market Position Statements for services for people with learning disabilities in their area. In order to effectively promote discharge and avoid admission, there needs to be an element of clinically led social care in the local plans. If local authorities and ICBs make this a clear request in their Market Position Statements they will influence providers to provide this clinically skilled workforce that will raise the quality of care in their region”
