Back to Bedlam? Key Report on Learning Disability

The Centre for Welfare Reform has published a damning report on the state of learning disability practice and policy in England. It is very much worth reading from a Scottish perspective too. The author of the report, Robin Jackson, sets out to show that:

• Successive governments in the UK have ignored people with a learning disability because this population is perceived to be too small and insignificant to warrant government interest and action
• Their treatment by governments has been unnecessarily cruel and characterised by administrative maladroitness and political ineptitude
• Governments have either ignored or violated the rights of people with a learning disability

Jackson points to the following dangerous developments:

1. The growing number of care home closures and local authority cuts in social care provision
2. The declining influence of the major disability charities and the negative consequences for people with a learning disability
3. The ”˜success’ of central governments in muzzling the voice of the larger national charities and ”˜independent’ advocacy programmes
4. Increasing centralised control in the field of research
5. The negative impact of some forms of technology on the provision of services for people with a learning disability
6. Escalating levels of prejudice and discrimination involving people with a learning disability
7. Successive governments’ practice of outsourcing social care provision for people with a disability

Jackson ends by posing the question ”“ are we witnessing the return of institutionalization of people with a learning disability?

Read the full report