Category Archives: learning difficulties

Carers of children with disabilities need respite

Carers of children with disabilities need respite

Closing short breaks units will pile even more pressure on the already stressed parents of disabled children

Child in wheelchair with carer
Families with disabled children are feeling the impact of cuts. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

This month, Lancashire county council will start to consult parents of children with disabilities about plans to close some of the county’s short breaks units (once called respite). The units give parents much-needed breaks from caring, and children a chance to socialise.

The plans to close units could impact on families such as Colin and Jennifer Dalley’s. They have three daughters with learning disabilities and behavioural problems, all needing supervision and support. The youngest, Kirsty, 11, needs constant care and monitoring, because she has severe epilepsy. She has an adapted bed and bathroom.

Ministers to strengthen safeguards for adults in care

I hope they do follow this through and make some big changes quickly not slowly.

Ministers to strengthen safeguards for adults in care

Patient with bag over head is addressed by two workers
Panorama captured footage of vulnerable patients being repeatedly pinned down, slapped and dragged

Vulnerable adults in care in England are to be given more protection from abuse, the government has said.

The pledge comes after a BBC Panorama investigation showed staff at a privately run hospital mistreating adults with learning disabilities.

The elderly and vulnerable must be protected at all costs

The elderly and vulnerable must be protected at all costs

 Thursday, 2 June 2011

 Care homes are not ordinary businesses that can safely be allowed to go bust

 The signs point to a care crisis. BBC’s Panorama this week exposed the horrendous abuse of people with learning difficulties at Winterbourne View, a private care home in Bristol. Meanwhile, Southern Cross, which runs 750 elderly care homes, has lurched deeper into financial turmoil. Southern Cross has told its landlords that, unless it is permitted to reduce its rent payments, insolvency looms.