CM Mental Health

Less than a third of UK adults think they would be likely to be accepted as foster carers were they to apply within the next two years, according to the results of a poll published by the Fostering Network.

MPs published the Education Committee’s Sixth Report of Session 2013-14 on Residential Children’s Homes last month which outlined when it is appropriate to refuse planning permission for children’s homes.

The June deadline for moving all service users inappropriately placed in large scale’ hospital or care homes into community will not be met, the director of the Winterbourne View Joint Improvement Programme has revealed. At the end of 2012 (CCMn December 2012/January 2013) the government issued a mandate to NHS commissioning boards to review all current placements for people with learning disabilities and autism by June 2013 with all people who have been placed inappropriately in hospital or large-scale residential care moved to community-based support no later than June 2014.

More than 96,000 people have contacted the government adoption information service in the first year of its operation. Averaging 327 contacts per day, First4Adoption was set up to address what the Department for Education (DfE) describes as a serious shortage of adopters’. Of those receiving impartial advice, 6,800 contacted their local agencies with a view to starting the adoption process.

All children in care who go missing will now have the chance to talk to an independent person about why they ran away, children’s minister Edward Timpson has announced.

A new dementia service has been set up to ensure people with the disease can access a joined up support.

The risk of developing dementia could be detected by a simple blood test within the next few years. With 90% accuracy rate, the test being developed by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center in the United States can identify people with a greater risk of developing the disease within three years by examining a set of ten molecules in the blood.

A new time limit on placing children in care with adoptive families and improvements to their education became law as the Children and Families Act received Royal Assent.

Following the Care Quality Commission (CQC) branding mental health crisis care inadequate’ (CCMn February 2014), police, mental health trusts and paramedics have signed a new agreement to drive up standards. The Crisis Care Concordat also aims to cut the number of people with mental health issues detained inappropriately in police cells. It sets out the standards of care people should expect if they suffer a crisis and how services should respond. This includes making sure beds are always available for people who need them urgently rather than using police custody. Furthermore, police vehicles should not be used to transfer patients and mental health services will be encouraged to share essential need-to-know’ information about patients to keep them and the public safe.

The Court of Protection ruled has that a dementia sufferer, who was admitted to a care home under the Mental Health Act, can go home for a trial period after her representatives complained that being in a care home was not in her best interests.