Guidance

This guideline covers services for children, young people and adults with a learning disability (or autism and a learning disability) and behaviour that challenges. It aims to promote a lifelong approach to supporting people and their families and carers, focusing on prevention and early intervention and minimising inpatient admissions.

This guideline should be read alongside the NICE guideline on challenging behaviour and learning disabilities: prevention and interventions.

We have produced an EasyRead version and video to explain this guidance, which are available from information for the public.

Recommendations

This guideline includes recommendations on:

Who is it for?

  • Commissioners and providers of health and social care services for children, young people and adults with a learning disability and behaviour that challenges
  • Health and social care practitioners working with children, young people and adults with a learning disability and behaviour that challenges
  • Providers of related services, including housing, education, employment and criminal justice services
  • Practitioners working with children, young people and adults with a learning disability and behaviour that challenges in other services or settings, including education, housing, voluntary and community services, employment and criminal justice services
  • Children, young people and adults with a learning disability and behaviour that challenges and their families and carers, including people who pay for their own care

Guideline development process

How we develop NICE guidelines

Your responsibility

The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.

All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.

Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.

Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.