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People with learning disabilities placed out of area: the South London experience
- Authors:
- CHAPLIN Eddie, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Learning Disabilities and Offending Behaviour, 1(3), October 2010, pp.5-14.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
One of the consequences of the closure of long-stay NHS hospitals has been the placement of people with learning disabilities who offend or have offending-type behaviours ‘out of area’ many miles from local services. This move of people out of area has made it difficult in many localities to develop local services and to monitor the quality of care for this group. This paper describes the start of an exercise to examine potential local care pathways for those who present with offending behaviours and to look at differences between the out of area group, and another receiving treatment locally. The first phase of the study comprised collecting numbers, type of placements, and clinical characteristics of service users placed out of area. The second phase consisted of interviews with service users in order to compare functioning, behaviour problems, need and quality of life of 28 participants placed out of area with 27 participants treated locally. Within the two groups the study found no significant differences regarding rates of psychiatric disorder, quality of life, or levels of unmet need. The main difference was that the out of area group was largely characterised by a range of aggressive and challenging behaviour, necessitating the additional structure and securities provided by out of area placements.