MENCAP - What is a Learning Disability?

What is a learning disability?

Mencap has updated its definition of learning disability.  “The old definition often made it hard to do our work effectively,” explained Sarah Bernard, Mencap’s head of communications and marketing.  “Whether campaigning, fundraising or promoting our services, we faced the challenge that most people do not know what a learning disability is.  “The old definition didn’t answer the question ‘What is a learning disability?’.  Instead, it focused on causes and what a learning disability isn’t.  We wanted a new definition that would be easy to understand for people with no knowledge of learning disability.”

Mencap
www.mencap.org.uk/definition

Full Text of Journals Available Now to COPE Staff

Since January we've had access to 4 health databases that contain the full text of many health, psychology, nursing, and therapy journals. If you would like to access the new services please contact me.

Learning Disability Nursing task group call on NICE to establish evidence based guidelines for commissioning

Feb 032012

In recent years, the number of people training as learning disability nurses has been falling. This report presents some of the issues believed to be at the heart of this and presents some potential solutions.
The report includes an analysis of:

• the difficulties in reliably identifying national supply and demand problems with numbers of student places being commissioned
• the number and geographical spread of education and training courses
• key issues with clinical placements

The authors also present as problematic, the non-strategic way in which this specialist part of the National Health Service workforce is being commissioned, planned and managed.
They consider that there is a lack of strategic leadership in commissioning and delivering training for learning disability nurses and action is needed urgently to avoid what they describe as a compromised workforce.
In addition, it is argued that as there is clear evidence to show that not only do people with learning disabilities have more health problems when compared with the general population but also receive an inequitable from mainstream health services that is it critical that the National Health Service make the best possible use of its specialist learning disability workforce to help address the health burden and improve the quality of mainstream health service responses.
The authors conclude that:

Learning disability nursing has moved from a narrowly defined role, within long term care, to a much broader role within the National Health Service and beyond.

They suggest that a:

Unique interplay between four major factors; Higher Education issues, workforce issues, along with poor data and ‘intelligence’ issues, and field of practice issues collectively threaten and compromise this specialist workforce in the short to medium term.

They make a number of recommendations, including:

Attitudes to disabilities revealed

[Posted: Mon 23/01/2012 by Deborah Condon www.irishhealth.com]

Most people believe that children with certain disabilities should not attend the same schools as children without disabilities, a new survey has revealed.
The survey by the National Disability Authority (NDA), which focused on national attitudes to disability, involved over 1,000 randomly selected adults and more than 250 people with various disabilities.
In the area of education, it found that while many people appeared to have no problem with children with physical disabilities attending schools with other children, a majority did have a problem with children with mental, intellectual, hearing and speech difficulties attending the same schools.
Furthermore, one in four said that they would actually object if a child with a mental health disability was put into the same class as their child, while one in five would object if a child with intellectual disabilities or autism was placed in their child's class.....
See Also

National Survey of Public Attitudes to Disability in Ireland

"The National Disability Authority undertook a national survey of public attitudes to disability in Ireland in July and August 2011. This survey builds upon previous surveys conducted by the Authority in 2001 and 2006."

Mental capacity Bill to be issued Shortly

MICHAEL O'REGAN

LEGISLATION UPDATING the law on mental capacity will be published shortly, Minister of State for Health Kathleen Lynch has said.
“The Bill will reform the law in respect of adults who are vulnerable, in the sense that they may lack some or all capacity to make important decisions for themselves,’’ she said.....

UPDATE - The Epilepsies - Diagnosis and Management of ....NICE

• The epilepsies: the diagnosis and management of the epilepsies in adults and children in primary and secondary care

  Clinical guidelines, CG137 - Issued: January 2012 This clinical guideline updates and replaces NICE clinical guideline 20, published in 2004. It also updates and replaces NICE technology appraisal 76 (2004) and NICE technology appraisal 79 (2004). It offers evidence-based advice on the care and treatment of children, young people and adults with epilepsy. New recommendations have been added for the pharmacological treatment of people with epilepsy, including the use of ketogenic diet.
  

  • Other information

    • CG137 Epilepsy: guidance (web format)

    NICE Pathways

    This guidance has been incorporated into the following NICE Pathways, along with other related guidance and products.
    Visit the NICE Pathway: epilepsy
    

    How this guidance was produced

    Background information

    • CG137 Epilepsy: press release
  This page was last updated: 18 January 2012
  
  For help with accessing this guidance contact Sheila - library@cope-foundation.ie