Conferences

Policy and Practice in Health and Learning Disability
- Addressing health issues with people who have complex support needs
7th October 2002
Stirling Business Management Centre, University of Stirling

This was a highly successful event from Sense Scotland and Pavilion Publishing, which brought together academics, practitioners, policy makers and families to discuss and share good practice about health care provision with individuals who have complex support needs.

Lisa Curtice, director of the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability, began the day with an overview of the policy context around health and learning disability and highlighted recommendations from The same as you? (May 2000). These recommendations included the founding of the Scottish consortium for learning disability which works with people who have learning disabilities and family carers to raise issues and take steps towards disseminating evidence of good practice about what works in terms of improving health care.

Dr. Jillian Morrison has been a practicing GP for 25 years - and she is also the Professor of GP studies at Glasgow University with particular responsibility for the training of medical students. She talked about a recent multi-disciplinary research project called Whose Responsibility which was about people with learning disabilities, their health and the involvement of primary care.

Dr Morrison highlighted some questions about the research from a GP's perspective. For example, in the general population the most frequent reason for visiting your GP is for depression. The study indicated that the top 2 reasons why people with learning disabilities visited their GPs were: skin complaints and medication reviews. Both very obvious medical complaints but perhaps the less obvious issues, such as depression, are not being addressed with individuals with learning disabilities - an area where a more pro-active approach by health care practitioners may be needed- certainly an area needing more research as well as innovative practice!

Dr. Heather Murdoch discussed the complexity of complex needs and the impact of complex support needs on families, practitioners and researchers. She highlighted some of the ethical difficulties that researchers must confront when working with people who have complex support needs - most researchers will take an easier option and go work with others where the issues are more straightforward! Dr Murdoch also discussed her research around working with children who have complex support needs and she stressed the need for coordination amongst the many professionals who may be involved with any one individual.

Linda Kerr presented an overview of the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000, paying specific attention to its provisions in terms of consent to medical treatment and the assessment role of specialist consultants and GPs when an individual might be unable to consent to medical treatment. Concerns were raised by carers about the lack of awareness amongst some health practitioners about the Act and particularly about the process of obtaining a certificate of incapacity prior to any medical intervention. Linda is monitoring how the Act impacts on the health treatment received by people with learning disabilities and is a resource for enquiries about this area of developing policy and practice.

The lack of communication between professionals as well as the difficulties in responding to the needs of people who may have difficulties in communicating to professionals was agreed to be an issue that needs serious attention – and is something we hope that everyone at the conference was able to take away as a personal action point.

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