New Legal Duty to Ensure Sufficient Housing in the Community for People with Learning Disabilities or Autism
In the government’s response to two reports from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, it promises to place a legal duty on local authorities and health commissioners, to ensure that there is sufficient housing within the community, to meet the needs of people with learning disabilities or autism.
The government will also require any organisation trying to stop families speaking out about poor care, by taking out an injunction, to alert them to the proposed injunction so they can ask for further information.
A White Paper on Mental Health is also proposed, which will include people with learning disabilities or autism only being placed in hospitals where a therapeutic benefit can be achieved, improved care planning and assessment and improved provision of advocacy services.
Fazilet Hadi, DR UK’s Head of Policy said “These proposed changes are very welcome. They follow a number of appalling incidents of abuse against people with learning disabilities and autism in closed psychiatric institutions. The legal duty to ensure sufficient community based housing will be a great step forward.”
You can read the full statement by The Minister of State for Care, Helen Whately on this link.
The wider reports, including an easy read version, can be accessed by clicking here.