Future need and demand for supported accommodation for people with learning disabilities in England

Abstract

Despite changes in the nature of supported accommodation services for nation with learning disabilities, little progres was made during the '70 '80 and '90 in addressing the amplitude of unmet need. While the advent of Supporting nation has more recently led to an increase in the convolution of provision, unmet need continues to be a major relate to to people with learning disabilities and their families. There is beneficial reason to believe that, as a arise of changes in the demographic profile of race with learning disabilities, changes in expectations and changes in the pattern of informal care, this issue will become substantially more pressing above the coming two decades. This paper attempts to estimate the nature and amplitude of increased need.

Introduction

The last four decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the way we have provided supported accommodation for tribe with learning disabilities. In 1976 more than 50000 nation with learning disabilities were living in large-scale NH long-term institutional provision. In issue institutionalisation was the only option for race with learning disabilities who could not live relatively independently and who, for whatever reason, no longer lived with their family. In 2006 the last of these NH institutions will shut up In their place we now have an array of smaller, more community-orientated provision (Emerson 2004)

There is little doubt that these changes have, overall, been to the benefit of nation with learning disabilities and informal carers (Emerson & Hatton, 1994; Hatton & Emerson 1996) There is also little doubt that the gains made are still far from sufficient to afford many nation with learning disabilities an acceptable quality of life (Emerson et al, 2005)

Improving the quality of supported accommodation is, however, sole part of the problem we are popularly facing. The other key part relates to increasing the endow of supported accommodation services in order to fitting current and future need and demand. The 1971 White Paper Better Services identified a significant shortfall in the whirl of provision, and set specific targets for increasing convolution by 1991. The best estimate is that no progres at all was made towards these targets above the following three decades (Emerson & Hatton, 1998) and that unmet ne for supported accommodation for nation with learning disabilities continued to constitute a major vexed question (Watson, 1996).

In this paper I will address three questions that are relevant to estimating generally received and future need and demand for supported accommodation services for family with learning disabilities.

* by what means many adults with learning disabilities are there in England?

* Do the numbers of adults with learning disabilities vary by the agency of area?

* How might the ne and demand for supported accommodation change in the future?

How many race with learning disabilities are there in England?

There are sum of two units quite different answers to this question. Our best estimate (derived from analysis of learning disability registers) is that 046% of the adult population of England are users (if sole on an occasional basis) of services for family with learning disabilities (Emerson & Hatton, 2004b) This is equivalent to approximately 170000 adults aged above 20 in England.

We know from epidemiological studies (Leonard ft Wen, 2002) however, that the 'true' prevalence of learning disabilities is a great deal of closer to two per cent of the adult population (equivalent to approximately 800000 adults aged 20 or more). The discrepancy between these sum of two units figures is due to a combination of factors, including the use of eligibility criteria to shut out people with lower support necessitys from services, and the reluctance of more [i]or[/i] less people with learning disabilities to identify themselves as of that kind during their interactions with service providers.

Table 1 below, gives estimated age-specific prevalence rates for the 'administrative' and 'true' populations of tribe with learning disabilities in England. These estimates can be used to predict the number of adults with learning disabilities who, upon average, would be expected to be eligible for services in any given area.

Does the number of adults with learning disabilities vary through area?

Epidemiological studies have consistently reported that the prevalence of les unrelenting learning disabilities (and learning disabilities that have no clear biological basis) is closely related to horizontal of social deprivation (Leonard et al, 2005; Leonard & Wen, 2002) necessity is a major cause of learning disabilities. There is also a certain number of evidence to suggest that the prevalence of more rigid learning disabilities may be higher among a certain quantity of minority ethnic communities (Emerson & Hatton, 2004c)

Figure 1 below, displays how the potential need for supported accommodation services varies between areas with different horizontals of social deprivation. The data are taken from the first national scan of the life experiences of English adults with learning disabilities (Emerson et al, 2005) The figure present to views the variation in the percentage of adults living in private households (that is, not living in the supported accommodation sector) when compared with an 'average' area in England. Each rounded pillar represents 20% of the population of England, running from the 20% greatest in quantity deprived areas to the 20% greatest in quantity affluent areas. The measure of deprivation used to build this figure was the multiple deprivation index from the English Indices of Deprivation 2004 applied to lower horizontal super-output areas (Noble et al, 2004) These figures could be used in conjunction with the estimates derived from Table 1 to adjust estimated local ne upon the basis of the horizontal of deprivation of local areas. thus for example, a local authority covering an area in which all super-output areas inhuman within the most deprived 20% in England would be wait fored to have a 52% increased potential demand for supported accommodation services for tribe with learning disabilities.