CM Mental Health

Community Care Market News (News) February 1999 The Department of Health has published community care statistics for 1998, covering residential personal social...

Mental health charity Mencap has said it is concerned that councils are increasingly sending people into care because it is a cheaper option, rather than because it is the best decision for the individual.

Community Care Market News (News) March 2004 Local authorities in Wales are projected to overspend on social services by almost £14m, according...

Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust failed to conduct transparent decision-making in its commissioning of learning disability services, according to a report by Monitor.

A Care Quality Commission (CQC) survey of 13,000 community mental health service users has found no notable improvement’ in the last year. In some areas a further slightly higher proportion of people have reported a poor experience with services run by NHS trusts.

The rise in detentions under the Mental Health Act may be are symptomatic of a healthcare system ‘under considerable strain’, says the Care Quality...

The number of children in council care in England has increased by 12% in the past four years, according to the Audit Commission.

Community Care Market News (News) December 1999 emPOWER, a consortium of 35 disability charities has launched a campaign for a National Service...

Almost one in four people with learning disabilities are living in care homes despite 70% of this population wishing to live independently, according to mental health charity Mencap. Mencap is warning that, due to a shortage of affordable housing opportunities, local authorities are moving away from supporting people to live independently in their own communities. Using data gathered from Freedom of Information requests submitted to all local authorities in England and Wales combined with a survey of nearly 500 parent/carers of people with a learning disability, the charity has concluded that, in the past year, the growing trend among councils is to only support people with a learning disability to live independently if the cost to support them is less than moving them into a care home.

Fewer than one in ten small housing associations have a strategy in place to support dementia sufferers or older people. A survey of 88 groups conducted by the Orbit Charitable Trust found only seven had a dementia strategy in place. Two-thirds of small housing associations admitted they did not have a dementia strategy drawn up with a quarter claiming that they did not need one. A further quarter of respondents said a strategy was being developed, while 12 said they had not yet thought about it. Most of the housing groups which responded to the survey said a separate dementia strategy was not necessary because of the size of their organisation. One said it dealt with cases on an individual basis, while another said dementia was dealt with as part of its older people’s strategy. The survey, which follows from Orbit’s research published last year into how housing associations and older people’s organisations can work better together to deliver better services, also found that half of the housing associations questioned do not have an older people’s strategy in place, while 28% do.