Individual research recommendation details

Recommendation ID

NG11/3

Question

Locally accessible care: - Does providing care where people live compared with out-of-area placement lead to improvements in both the clinical and cost effectiveness of care for people with a learning disability and behaviour that challenges?

Any explanatory notes
(if applicable)

Why this is important:- Many out-of-area care placements for people with a learning disability and behaviour that challenges are a long way from their home. This can have a considerable impact, limiting a family member or carer's ability to care for the person and leading to poorer outcomes and increased costs. It is widely recognised that locally accessible care settings could be beneficial and could reduce costs but there is no strong empirical evidence to support this. In the absence of such evidence significant numbers of out-of-area care placements continue to be made.
The question should be addressed by a programme of research that includes:
- a needs assessment and the care costs of a consecutive cohort of 250 people who have been placed in out-of-area care in a 2-year period
- developing standards for a range of support programmes designed to meet people's needs, which would provide detailed information on:
              - the needs to be meet
              - the nature of the care environments
              - the support, including specialist staff, needed
- testing the clinical and cost effectiveness of 'close to home' or home-based care that meet the developed standards (compared with consecutive cohorts in out-of-area placements).

Source guidance details

Comes from guidance

Challenging behaviour and learning disabilities: prevention and interventions for people with learning disabilities whose behaviour challenges

Number

NG11

Date issued

May 2015

Other details